Being good at something

I’ve always admired people who are really good at something and wondered: How did this person get so good at this thing? Examples: Programming, sports, Fortnite.

Now I took the summer off work I finally realised how people do it. Tl;dr: They practice a lot.

One of my main hobbies is wakeboarding and every time I go, I meet a lot of wakeboarders who are way better than I. They also seem to be improving at a crazy rate. After getting to know them I realised: the best ones practice almost every day. Most typical scenario: Work at the wakepark and practice every day. Save some money. In the winter, head to Asia for 4 months and practice every day.

Same goes for video games. I’m like “How did my little brother and his friends get so good in the last few months?” Then I watch him play. They play almost every night and almost all weekend.

You guessed it, the same goes for programming. The very best programmers I’ve worked with either write code, think about code, or study programming-related stuff on the weekends.

I realised no-one can be extremely good at many things at the same time. It’s just not possible because there will always be other people who invest almost 100% of their time into a single activity.

The only ways I see to get really good at something:

• Make it your job
• Quit your job and focus on it full-time
• If you can’t do the above, practice in the evenings and on the weekends

The last option is easier if you use different parts of your body for the job and the activity. For example, solving hard problems 5 days a week makes your head tired, but it’s still very possible (and beneficial) to have a physical hobby.