Practice v/s Laziness

This quote based on research by Dr.Carol Dweck got me thinking:

“Children who are “entity theorists” … are prone to use language like ‘I am smart at this.’ And to attribute their success or failure to an ingrained and unalterable level of ability. They see their overall intelligence or skill level at a certain discipline to be a fixed entity, a thing that cannot evolve. Incremental theorists, who have picked up a different modality of learning, are more prone to describe their results with sentences like ‘I got it because I worked very hard at it’ or ‘I should have tried harder.’ A child with a learning theory of intelligence tends to sense that with hard work, difficult material can be grasped- step-by-step, incrementally, the novice can become the master.”

Many of us think (or like to think) that smart people are born that way. That it is a gift. Guess what? Even the Beatles practiced for more than 10,000 hours at night clubs (as per the book, Outliers: The Story of Success); Picasso’s paintings at age 6 wouldn’t have made the money they make today; and nobody got into that prestigious college by not studying!

Sure, some kids (people) are smarter than others and they pick up things faster than others, but everyone needs to practice. Some may need a little less (lot less even in some cases) practice than others, but that’s about the only difference.

I think we sometimes feel that others are “gifted” because it gives us a better excuse than laziness to not try something: we can’t get to that level because of our genes, our lack of inborn talent/skills. Any excuse to not practice, to not try hard will do.

And no, Mozart was an exception. And no, the exception doesn’t prove the rule.