---
type: permanent
status: mature
created: "2026-01-22"
description: "Structured, goal-directed practice with feedback builds expertise beyond comfort zones"
tags:
  - expertise
  - practice
  - skill-acquisition
---

# Deliberate Practice

Deliberate practice, defined by Anders Ericsson, is a structured form of practice specifically designed to improve performance. It is qualitatively different from simply repeating an activity ("naive practice") or performing at a comfortable level.

## Characteristics

1. **Specific goals**: Targets well-defined aspects of performance
2. **Full attention**: Requires focused concentration (related to [[Flow State]])
3. **Immediate feedback**: Performance is measured and errors corrected quickly
4. **Beyond comfort zone**: Continuously pushes the edge of current ability (a [[Desirable Difficulties]] principle)
5. **Mental representations**: Builds increasingly sophisticated [[Schema Theory]] structures

## Relationship to Expertise

- Expert performers have accumulated thousands of hours of deliberate (not merely naive) practice
- Deliberate practice builds rich [[Chunking]] structures that automate lower-level skills
- The "10,000-hour rule" is misleading -- quality of practice matters more than quantity
- Feedback from coaches or [[Formative Assessment]] is essential to guide improvement

## Limitations

- Requires motivation and [[Growth Mindset]] to sustain through difficulty
- Not all domains afford deliberate practice equally (well-defined skills vs. ill-defined ones)
- Individual differences in aptitude still matter, even with optimal practice

## Connections

- Builds [[Schema Theory]] and [[Chunking]] structures that characterise expertise
- The challenge component exemplifies [[Desirable Difficulties]]
- Requires [[Metacognition]] for self-monitoring when a coach is absent
- [[Flow State]] occurs when deliberate practice hits the optimal challenge point
- Central concept in [[Learning System Design]]

#expertise #practice #skill-acquisition
