Anders Ericsson is best known for his emphasis on the importance of practice on attaining mastery. His work was so influential that it led to the 10,000-hour rule, a term coined by Malcolm Gladwell in his book “Outliers.” Gladwell proposed that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert, based on Ericsson’s research. However, Ericsson never suggested that 10,000 hours is a magic number. While more hours lead to improvement in performance, there is no magic number that determines the difference between novice and expert. Finally, he emphasized that the quality and type of practice are crucial determinants of expertise.
To emphasize the importance of engagement in learning, Ericsson introduced the concept of deliberate practice, a highly structured form of practice that involves receiving feedback on performance. Deliberate practice requires focused attention and is mentally demanding, making it difficult to maintain for long periods of time. This type of practice helps build mental representations, or cognitive images, that allow for efficient mental processing of the outside world. These mental images are vital in the expertise literature. I think of them as re-presentations that remold the outside world for efficient access in our minds.
While deliberate practice leads to improvement, it raises the question of what motivates a person to continue practicing. Beyond sheer hours, is there a factor that sustains practice over time? This is where psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of flow comes into play.
When Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi first began to study artists, he noticed something very odd. Artists would spend huge amounts of time painting, completely absorbed in their work. The odd thing was that they did not really stop to enjoy the finished product. Rather, they would finish a painting and then immediately begin a new one. When he interviewed them, he realized that they were more interested in the act of painting than in the completed painting. He termed this immersive state flow. Flow is characterized by being so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter, and the activity is pursued for its own sake.
Flow is not limited to artists; it occurs in various domains such as work, sports, music, and even academic pursuits. Csikszentmihalyi repeatedly found that people reported feeling deeply absorbed by an activity without regard to the outcome. Because deliberate practice involves feedback and is optimally challenging, it fosters absorption and engagement. Thus, deliberate practice can in principle lead to flow. In other words, deliberate practice can setup the conditions that lead to flow.
In my book, Mastery: How Learning Transforms Our Minds, Brains and Bodies, I discuss two examples that show how flow can appear during deliberate practice. One example is Dan Maclaughlin who took up golf at age 30 and, under Ericsson’s guidance, used deliberate practice to improve dramatically within a few years. He described moments of complete absorption where time seemed to fly by, leading to his best performance on the golf course. Similarly, Nobel Prize-winning neuroscientist Santiago Ramón y Cajal, originally aspiring to be an artist, found flow in his scientific work, often losing track of time while drawing nerve cells. During his periods of peak productivity, he often reported losing track of the beginning and end of his days, with this flow extending well into the night when others had already gone to sleep only to wake in the morning eager to begin again.
Ericsson suggests that deliberate practice and mental representations are key to improvement. However, I propose that a true measure of progress is the extent to which we become absorbed in an activity. The more we experience flow, the more likely we are to find purpose and meaning, which in turn enhances our skills. The emergence of this greater whole from many small parts is at the heart of learning. Mastery, which starts as an emergence of skill, becomes an emergence of self, resonating across the many networks we inhabit as individuals.
Recent neuroscience research supports the connection between flow and deliberate practice. Brain scans show that multiple brain networks interface with a self-network, primarily involving the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. This default network becomes less active during periods of flow, reinforcing the deep engagement required for mastery. Across many studies, this network consistently shows more activity when people thinking about themselves, suggesting its role in self-referential processes that are often excluded from flow.
Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of flow adds a significant dimension to Ericsson’s view of deliberate practice. Flow allows us to transcend individual tasks, integrating them into a cohesive whole. In this state, all activities start to mold together into a greater whole. This emergence of a greater whole from smaller parts is central to learning and mastery. Ultimately, mastery evolves from skill with ourselves to a world outside ourselves, resonating across the many networks that define us as individuals.
By integrating the concepts of deliberate practice and flow, we can better understand the pathways to expertise and the intrinsic motivations that drive us. The more we cultivate deliberate practice and seek moments of flow, the more likely we are to achieve mastery and find fulfillment in our pursuits.
Adapted from the book, Mastery: How Learning Transforms Our Brains, Minds and Bodies by Arturo E. Hernandez
