At first glance, it might be safe to assume that by simply doing something for a very long time ensures that you will get better and better at that something.
I recently explicitly came to the realisation that this is not always, maybe hardly ever the case.
Here's the example that made this clear to me.
Lars Ulrich, the drummer in Metallica, has been their drummer for over 42 years now. In that time he has certainly influenced an untold number of kids to start playing the drums, start bands etc... Metallica is massive, way beyond what most bands ever achieve, and well beyond just selling records.
Now, Lars is not seen as the best drummer in the world (I think he was voted as such in an edition of Modern Drummer around the time of The Black Album). Based on the drum battle footage between Lars and Metallica frontman James Hetfield, from the Live Shit: Binge and Purge release, I am not sure Lars is the best drummer in Metallica.
Don't get me wrong, I love Metallica. My brother and I went to see them in Amsterdam on the most recent tour, what a show!!
A few weeks ago I listened to the Master of Puppets album, which was released in 1986, Metallica's third album.
What struck me was that I could not tell that Lars has almost 40 years' worth more experience since that album was recorded. I can not find anything he plays on the later Metallica albums, including the latest 72 Seasons, which he couldn't play just as well in 1986. There is nothing to suggest Lars has improved as a drummer over the last 4 decades.
They've played more than 1,600 shows and recorded 11 studio albums to date. Yet, it seems not even that amount of "doing the thing" has made Lars better at "the thing".
This suggests that to get better at something, you need to spend time working at getting better, learning something new. It is not enough to simply spend thousands of hours doing something.
Learning and doing really are two different points of focus, and we need both.
I recently explicitly came to the realisation that this is not always, maybe hardly ever the case.
Here's the example that made this clear to me.
Lars Ulrich, the drummer in Metallica, has been their drummer for over 42 years now. In that time he has certainly influenced an untold number of kids to start playing the drums, start bands etc... Metallica is massive, way beyond what most bands ever achieve, and well beyond just selling records.
Now, Lars is not seen as the best drummer in the world (I think he was voted as such in an edition of Modern Drummer around the time of The Black Album). Based on the drum battle footage between Lars and Metallica frontman James Hetfield, from the Live Shit: Binge and Purge release, I am not sure Lars is the best drummer in Metallica.
Don't get me wrong, I love Metallica. My brother and I went to see them in Amsterdam on the most recent tour, what a show!!
A few weeks ago I listened to the Master of Puppets album, which was released in 1986, Metallica's third album.
What struck me was that I could not tell that Lars has almost 40 years' worth more experience since that album was recorded. I can not find anything he plays on the later Metallica albums, including the latest 72 Seasons, which he couldn't play just as well in 1986. There is nothing to suggest Lars has improved as a drummer over the last 4 decades.
They've played more than 1,600 shows and recorded 11 studio albums to date. Yet, it seems not even that amount of "doing the thing" has made Lars better at "the thing".
This suggests that to get better at something, you need to spend time working at getting better, learning something new. It is not enough to simply spend thousands of hours doing something.
Learning and doing really are two different points of focus, and we need both.