What is Your Batting Practice? – Watch; Learn; Practice; Rehearse – Steps in Developing Expertise

Think about skill development.  And then skill refinement.  And then skill maintenance – and continual skill improvement.

Pick any skill.

I think you will find some version of the same “steps” in developing a skill – and then maintaining your expertise.

You can look at a police officer and his/her firearm skills; a major league hitter and his batting skills; a paratrooper…  Pick any physical skill, and the steps really are the same.

Cardinals Batting Practice

I bet that a major league hitter, in his last week of his career, even if his team is far out of the playoff picture, maybe even up until his very last day for his very last game, still takes batting practice.  Notice what this pre-game ritual is called:  “batting practice.”  On the last day of a career, a batter still wants/needs to keep his hitting sharp, so he “practices” his skill.

So, here are the steps…

Somebody shows you how to do it…
then
You do it until you learn it
then
A good observer/coach watches you, and “helps you improve with some small, and occasionally some big, ‘tweaks’”
then
You practice and drill over and over and over and over and over again
then
You actually do it – (for a hitter, “doing it” is walking up to the plate in a game)

Now, here’s the thing.  Most of us have jobs in which we do not have such an obvious “physical task” to perform.

But… let’s not kid ourselves.  All jobs are physical.  All tasks are physical — even “information” tasks.  The brain, as we know, is a muscle…

So – developing expertise is pretty much the same, regardless of your job.  Your steps are the same…

So, again, here are the steps…

Somebody shows you how to do it…
then
You do it until you learn it
then
A good observer/coach watches you, and “helps you improve with some small, and occasionally some big, ‘tweaks’”
then
You practice and drill over and over and over and over and over again
then
You actually do it – 

Learn; practice; rehearse; get coaching; practice; rehearse; “perform.”  Over the long haul, this develops expertise.  And expertise is what we all want, in any worker we work with, or hire, in every arena of life.

So, what is your “batting practice?”  What do you do to practice/drill/refine your skills?