1. It's not about natural talent. It's about hard work.

2. 10,000 hours is not the whole story.

3. Make your practice as close to the real thing as possible.

4. Commit to the long term.

5. The best goal is merely to "get better".

My notes are below.

1. Hard work is more important than talent.

Via Mindset: The New Psychology of Success:

“After forty years of intensive research on school learning in the United States as well as abroad, my major conclusion is:

What any person in the world can learn, almost all persons can learn, if provided with the appropriate prior and current conditions of learning.”

He’s not counting the 2 to 3 percent of children who have severe impairments, and he’s not counting the top 1 to 2 percent of children at the other extreme… He is counting everybody else: 95% of people.

2. Deliberate practice is key.

As Malcolm Gladwell discussed in his bestseller, “Outliers“, to become an expert it takes 10,000 hours (or approximately 10 years), right? Wrong. It takes 10,000 hours of deliberate practice. That means actively working to improve. Just showing up doesn’t cut it.

Most people may do something for 10,000 hours (driving a car over the course of a lifetime) but never get anywhere near expert level (Formula One). Most people plateau and some even get worse.

3. Practice as close to reality as possible.

“One real encounter, even for a few seconds, is far more useful than several hundred observations.”

4. Commit to the long term.

Merely deciding you’re committed for the long-term vs the short-term makes an enormous difference.

Via The Talent Code: Greatness Isn’t Born. It’s Grown. Here’s How:

When McPherson saw the graph, he was stunned. “I couldn’t believe my eyes,” he said. Progress was determined not by any measurable aptitude or trait, but by a tiny, powerful idea the child had before even starting lessons. 

5. The best goal is merely to “get better” ...

When challenged, focus on “getting better” — not doing well or looking good. Get-better goals increase motivation, make tasks more interesting and replenish energy.

Via Nine Things Successful People Do Differently:

Get-better goals, on the other hand, are practically bulletproof.

When we think about what we are doing in terms of learning and mastering, accepting that we may make some mistakes along the way, we stay motivated despite the setbacks that might occur…

The amazing thing was that the people who were pursuing get-better goals (i.e., who saw the test as an opportunity to learn a new problem-solving skill) were completely unaffected by any of our dirty tricks. No matter how hard we made it, these participants stayed motivated and did well.