• Deliberate practice must be designed specifically to improve performance. Each exercise should focus on sharply defined elements that need to be improved. Because it is often difficult to diagnose our own weak points, we may need a teacher or coach to help us design the steps that will help us to get better.
  
  
• Deliberate practice must be outside our comfort zone. The idea is not to repeat what we already know, but rather to stretch ourselves beyond our current abilities. For example, instead of hitting the ball like he always does, Tiger Woods intently practices shots from near impossible lies, like buried deep in a sand trap.
  
  
• Deliberate practice can be repeated often. Once we identify an activity that is just beyond our current skill level, we need to do it over and over.
  
  
• Feedback is continuously available. An essential element of deliberate practice is feedback on performance. Gauging performance of some activities, like sports, can be easy. But in a job situation, a coach or mentor might be vital for providing crucial feedback.
  
  
• It can be exhausting. Because we’re working at such a challenging level, deliberate practice involves immense concentration. Since it requires intense focus, doing something that we’re not very good at, it can be mentally demanding.

It is easier to see how to practice sports skills than to develop a plan for practicing our professional skills. The trick, Colvin says, may be to engage in activities that researchers call “self-regulation.” That term encompasses the steps we take in our heads as we approach, undertake and review our work:

• Self-regulation begins with goal-setting. High performers tend to approach each day with specific goals for what they will be doing. The best performers set goals that are not about the outcome, but rather about the process of reaching the outcome. For example, successful salespeople may think not about how much they will sell, but rather about how many sales calls they will make today.
  
  
• High performers observe themselves closely. The most important self-regulatory skill during work is the ability step outside yourself and see how you are doing. High performers tend to observe their own activities, and ask questions as though they were objective observers.
  
  
• Excellent performers understand the value of feedback. High achievers tend to review their work and judge themselves against a standard that is relevant to what they want to achieve. As with all deliberate practice, the key is to choose a basis of comparison that stretches you just beyond your limit.

Colvin acknowledges that the research doesn’t explain why some people put themselves through the years of practice that makes them great. At a certain point it seems to be about choice. Each of us must decide what we really, deeply want and choose how much of an investment we are willing to make.