Why external feedback is essential to writing excellence

Have you ever wondered why dancers practice in front of the mirror? It's not just vanity—they need to see their performance from the viewpoint of the audience. However, while the feedback you get from reflection (see what I did there?) is a necessary start, it's not sufficient.

You've probably heard of the pop-psychology myth that 10,000 hours of practice are required to become excellent. And you probably rolled your eyes because it obviously doesn't tally with the observation that many skills can be learned to adequacy in a fraction of that time. 

For instance, outside of Uber and truck drivers, few people have driven 10,000 hours. After all, 10,000 hours is 10 years at 20 hours of practice a week! Clearly, most of us learnt to drive adequately well after a fraction of that time.

What's happening is that, unless excellence is really important to you, you are likely to reach a level of 'satisfactory adequacy' fairly quickly and then plateau. In other words, you practice until you’re good enough to get by and then don’t have a need/incentive to improve further.

Celebrated psychologist and journalist Daniel Goleman, best-known for his influential 1995 book Emotional Intelligence, examined that issue in his book Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence (2013). 


The importance of expert feedback
On top of the hours of practice, you need a feedback loop that allows you to spot errors as they occur and correct them.  Ideally, that feedback comes from someone with an expert eye and so every world-class sports champion has a coach.

- Daniel Goleman


In other words, if you practice without good feedback, you won’t get to the top. And good feedback comes from a good coach.

Now a good coach needn't have a diploma. They don't even have to be a professional writer—many editors can give you valuable feedback, if they have the time. A coach does need to be a good reader, someone who can read a piece of your work and feel the magic (or not) and give you an honest appraisal of what your readership will love… and what will frustrate them.  

But, most importantly, a coach has to be able to help you change. 

And, often, that's the hardest part!

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