Longer hours doesnt automatically create better performance
Summary
- Enjoying your work may be more effective than working longer hours to improve performance
Details
- A study of concert pianists showed that many were not obsessed with playing piano and did not practice for exhorbitant amounts of time, but they were interested in music and enjoyed working with the teacher
- harmonious passion: taking joy in the process rather than 'i should practice x hours a day'
References
Quotes
Research demonstrates that people who are obsessed with their work put in longer hours yet fail to perform any better than their peers. They’re more likely to fall victim to both physical and emotional exhaustion. The monotony of deliberate practice puts them at risk for burnout—and for boreout. Yes, boreout is an actual term in psychology. Whereas burnout is the emotional exhaustion that accumulates when you’re overloaded, boreout is the emotional deadening you feel when you’re under-stimulated. Although it takes deliberate practice to achieve greater things, we shouldn’t drill so hard that we drive the joy out of the activity and turn it into an obsessive slog. In a study of concert pianists who attained international acclaim before turning forty, few were obsessed with their craft. In their early years, most practiced the piano only an hour a day. They weren’t raised by slave drivers or drill sergeants; their parents responded to their intrinsic motivation with enthusiasm. As they became teenagers, they steadily increased their daily effort, but it didn’t become an obsession or a chore. “They practiced because they were interested in what they were doing,” psychologist Lauren Sosniak explains, and “because they enjoyed working with the teacher
Elite musicians are rarely driven by obsessive compulsion. They’re
usually fueled by what psychologists call harmonious passion. Harmonious passion is taking joy in a process rather than feeling pressure to achieve an outcome. You’re no longer practicing under the specter of should. I should be studying. I’m supposed to practice. You’re drawn into a web of want. I feel like studying. I’m excited to practice. That makes it easier to find flow: you slip quickly into the zone of total absorption, where the world melts away and you become one with your instrument. Instead of controlling your life, practicing enriches your life. The importance of passion isn’t unique to music. Across 127 studies
with over 45,000 people, persistence was more likely to translate into performance when passion was present.[*] The question is how to build the scaffolding to bring that passion into practice. My favorite answer is called deliberate play.