392. You’re Really Good At Doing It Wrong

Practice doesn't make perfect. You just get really good at doing it wrong.

Note: This article was inspired by a post from Britta Blanski, the content strategist. You really should follow her.

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You’re always practicing something.
You usually just don’t know what it is.

Let me explain.
And we’re going to start with my knee.

After decades of long distance athletics, my knee finally quit on me earlier this year.

It’s all fucked up.
ACL tear. Deteriorated cartilage.
I could barely haul myself up a small set of stairs.

I had to stop running.
Stop cycling.
And basically stop doing all the things that would keep my wife from wanting to punch me in the face.

The thing is, none of this should have surprised me.

But it did.

25 years ago I learned I have a double tarsal coalition in my right foot. That’s the technical term for “bones stuck together”, because I know you like your technical terms.

Basically, my right foot flares out when I run.
The doctors told me, “We’re amazed you can run. Keep running.”

So I did.

The foot issue wasn’t causing me any problems, so I barely paid attention to it. Eventually, I forgot about it altogether.

Then came the injuries.

One year, I hurt my calf and couldn’t run for two weeks.
The next time, four weeks.
Then six. Eight. Twelve.

Each injury took a little longer to heal. And each one seemed to happen a little sooner than the last.

But eventually I’d recover and go right back to my long-distance malarkey.

I told myself I was overtraining.
Or I had bad luck.
Or injury was simply the price you pay for doing hard things.

Regardless, I believed every workout was making me a better runner.

I was wrong.

I thought I was practicing running.
I was actually practicing running wrong.

Every step reinforced the same bad movement.
My foot flared out.
My leg compensated.
My knee twisted in a way knees aren’t particularly fond of twisting.

And I did it over and over again. Through millions of steps. For decades.

Until eventually my knee waved the white flag and said, Fuck this. I’m done.

You’re Confusing Experience With Expertise

Most people believe that if you do something enough times, you’ll get great at it. Log enough hours and eventually you’ll be a master.

Turns out that’s not true.

In 2005, researchers at Harvard Medical School¹ reviewed a bunch of studies that measured the level of care doctors give to their patients. You’d assume the more experienced a doctor was, the better care they gave.

Nope.

More than half of the studies found that the more years a doctor practiced, the worse their quality of care.

Crazy, right?
I know.

Experience alone doesn’t make you better.
It only makes you better at whatever you were practicing.

Think of it as the difference between 20 years of experience, and one year of experience that you’ve repeated 20 times.

Practice Doesn’t Make Perfect

I know what’s going on in your mind. You’re thinking of that 10,000-hour rule, aren’t you?

I see you.

In case you don’t know the rule, it is based on research from Anders Ericsson, and claims that if you put 10,000 hours of practice into something, you’ll become world-class at it.

Unfortunately it’s wrong.
Even Anders spent years pushing back against it.

The hours were never the point of his work. What matters most is not the amount of time you practice, but how you do it.

10,000 hours of doing something wrong doesn’t make it right.
Just ask my knee.

You’ve heard the saying, “Practice makes perfect.”

It doesn’t.

Practice makes permanent.

What Are You Practicing?

You’ve probably got a lot of experience. Five years of doing your job. Ten years of leading people. Twenty years in your industry. Whatever.

Let’s look at the things you’ve actually been practicing during that time.

Every time you avoid a hard conversation, you’re practicing avoidance.
Every time you check your phone in a meeting, you’re practicing distraction.
Every time you let someone miss a commitment without addressing it, you’re practicing a lack of accountability.

None of those things feel like practice.
They just feel like…. any old Tuesday.

You stop noticing it because it’s just how you do things. Just like how I stopped noticing that my foot flares out and twists my knee.

But every time you repeat one of those things, its a rep.
And the reps add up.

That’s why you can have twenty years of leadership experience and still be a crappy leader.

That’s the bad news.
But, don’t worry, it gets worse.

Your Warning Signs Are Already There

Your warning signs have probably already been there.
Mine definitely were.

First, I was injured for two weeks.
Then four.
Then six.

And each time, I came up with a perfectly reasonable explanation for it.

Overtraining. Bad luck. Getting older.
Anything other than admitting that the way I was practicing running might be the problem.

You do the exact same thing.
But your warning signs are a little different.

Maybe your team gets a little quieter.
People stop challenging your ideas.
Maybe a good employee leaves. Then another one does.

You tell yourself it’s the job market. Or a bad hire. Or a rough quarter.
And maybe it is.
Or maybe it’s your version of my foot flaring out.

The problem isn’t that you don’t see the consequences. It’s that you’ve gotten really good at explaining them away.

And every time you do, you go back to practicing the exact behavior that’s causing them.

But I’m telling you, when you’re really good at doing things wrong, something is eventually going to break.

So Here’s The Question

Forget how much experience you have. Let’s pretend that doesn’t matter.

Just tell me, what did you practice today?

Not what you meant to practice. What you actually did. Over and over. Without thinking about it.

Because that’s the thing you’re getting better at.

And if you keep practicing it, don’t be surprised when you get really fucking good at doing it wrong.

Because that’s when everything breaks.

1. “Older doctors less likely to follow current standards for care,” Harvard Gazette, Feb 17, 2005