Ever hear of the 10,000 Hour Rule? This idea suggests that you need around 10,000 hours of careful, deliberate practice in order to become an expert, or to “master” a skill. This concept was popularized by Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers. Gladwell used lots of anecdotal data to support the concept, but the main centerpiece is a study titled "The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance." This 1993 study focused on expert violinists at the Berlin Academy of Music.
As I, and now my kid's piano teacher says: "Practice makes permanent." The 10,000 hour 'rule' only works if it's good form. Most of my work is spent breaking bad habits in thought, work, and design even, and especially if, they have 10K hours in on it.
The paraeto principle also falls in here. 20% will get you 80% and that might be enough.
I prefer deliberate practice. Intentionally practicing every week with such reasonable hours will let you discover other things that you wouldn't when you do it partially. But this of course shouldn't be attached to outcome because that's where you will lose the focus. You only play to play and not win. But above all, it is really hard and requires a high intensity kind of resilience less you stop.
I like to try to do deliberate practice in my writing, making sure I "stretch" at least a few times each week. I think it's really important for us to evolve and improve as writers. I keep thinking about writing in the context of sports (for me, jiu jitsu), because both require patience, focus, and deliberate practice for many years to begin to master.
Jiu jiutsu can be your favorite pick because it's sport that you've been doing for many years and you have deep perspectives that we don't know and can help us understand how to remain resilient in our everyday life of constant knocks.
In my world repetition is key, I guess that's true for many disciplines. I have spent quite a bit of time deliberately honing my craft. On the other hand in the kitchen at least, a lot of learning is done through osmosis or the absorption of knowledge from others. I have thought of the 10,000 hour rule throughout my career, wondering am I a master yet, like somebody's going to tell me when that happens. Then imposter syndrome takes over. I have been practicing, learning, thinking about my craft for well over 10,000 hours but I still don't consider myself a master because there's always something to learn. It's funny how that works.
I bet all the time in restaurants I had put together amounted to over 10,000 hours, but I would also bet that a third of that time was more like cleaning (sweeping, mopping, cleaning my stations), and maybe another third was just stuff I was already good at. That other third, though: that's the sweet spot.
I bet you've got way over 10,000 hours of deliberate time, just getting better at things. Do you sometimes do something different when you're prepping just because it's new to you? I know that's how I think about jiu jitsu (and, increasingly, writing).
Love this. I know I do. It's recommended for optimal growth and for your mind to stretch it do something new. I think taking a different approach is a really great way to further build a skill.
Often times when I was younger I would volunteer to work an unfamiliar station during a crazy rush to challenge myself or test my metal if you will. And yes I do assign myself tasks while prepping that I may not perform regularly for that very reason. In writing, I have been recently writing fiction in my spare time in order to be a more well rounded writer, which is my next life goal.
Let's do it! My son and I are writing a book for kids around his age between 9-11. He writes and then I edit/ghost write and kinda direct the flow. We are going to publish through Amazon when we are finished, I am excited to see the finished product.
So let me be the first to say that "Mastery" isn't all that it's cracked up to be. Everyone wants their skill acknowledged. But even in a place like chess where there are strict rules of who does and doesn't count as a Master, and there are Levels of Master, that doesn't mean that even at the top level that a person with that title will automatically garner respect.
Pursuit of Mastery of a subject is excellent. I applaud anyone who seeks to make themselves better. But don't lose sight that mastery is only part of who you are.
Well said, Mike! Many would consider a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu black belt to be "master" level, but within that spectrum, there is no upper bound, so there's tremendous discrepancy between an entry level black belt and, say, a world champion, or even a gym owner who has been a black belt for 15+ years. I agree completely with this framework and observation.
One of my favorite books :) however, the effectiveness of practice can depend on many factors, including the nature of the skill, the method of practice, and the individual’s innate abilities.
This article cemented Im a jack of all trades and master of none!! As I was reading, not only was I stuck by how much time 10,000 hours is, but also how much this article reminded me of your article regarding driving to the moon. If this article was constructed with more of that bedtime math, you may have mastered that art! Does mastery count if it’s not with deliberate action of the art, but with deliberate action of the goal?
I'm glad this resonated! And yes, this is definitely tangentially related to the moon piece (if anyone's curious/nerdy/bored enough to check this out, you might really like it): https://goatfury.substack.com/p/driving-to-the-moon
I don't really know what truly constitutes "mastery", but it's probably a spectrum that can be fairly wide depending on interpretation. I think it doesn't matter too much how you got there once you're there, although some ways are more efficient than others.
Andrew, thank you for this article. It gives me such hope!
In September, I started playing the violin, just for my own enjoyment, following YouTube instructors. I can manage *maybe* 2 hours a week when no one is home (except the cats who retreat downstairs and hide) to hear my screeching. According to Gladwell's theory, I'll become proficient when I'm... (calculating...) 162! My mom lived to 100, and with today's technology, who knows?!
Andrew, this is a great piece that puts mastery into perspective. It's very difficult to calculate those hours in different disciplines. I one asked a senior partner who had practiced law for 25 years -- let's say 2,000 hours annually at least -- at what point he felt comfortable, and he said 10 years (so 20,000 hours). That was daunting, but it makes sense.
And look who snuck into the photo !! As for the mat photo, is the man instructing you guys who I think it is? RG?
The fella instructing Trey and me through the move in that pic is Aaron Lapointe, a friend who is a BJJ black belt with a very distinguishing feature: he has one functioning arm. Aaron's approach to BJJ is very different, and I've found a lot of value in training with him and listening to him over the years!
@Andrew Smith ... deliberate practice ... 10,000 hours ... mastery ... all of this is fascinating me as I make another dive into learning Spanish ... this time, my intention is going deeper than before. As you talk about learning precision movements, it makes me yearn for certainty ... "do it precisely this way" and performance evaluation.
It seems like mastering physical tasks such as BJJ and violins lend themselves to that switching moment when your body, your hands or feet, suddenly "feel" how to do something. And teachers have a path laid out to get you from white belt to black belt. While there are a ton of language learning resources in the world, it feels like there are a thousand hiking trails leading off into the woods with few signs along the way.
As always, you provide so much food for thought. Thank you.
Thanks, Joyce! I also wanted to talk about how my fingers and hands seem to know what to do, too, but I wonder how much "expertise" I really have in writing. I'm working on it, to be sure. We're all students in this long journey.
I struggled taking the back from guard this morning. However, the older gentleman (and more experienced BJJ practitioner) who drilled with me told me two things that made my day: 1. "I can see how the gears are turning in your head." 2. He's not in a rush to get to the next belt.
"Practice makes progress" is my favorite remix of "Practice makes perfect."
Excellent. Also: perfect practice makes perfect works! Take the time to understand things, and you'll have a much, much better shot at sticking with this long term. Good job, Walther!
This was my favorite article of yours so far; I do my own "adding up the hours" all the time.
I've read half-a-dozen or so of Gladwell's books and listened to a few of his podcast episodes. Outliers was certainly his best work.
I don't think it's about hitting a magic number (someone who stops at 9,999 hours isn't going to be automatically worse at a skill than someone who hit the 10,000). Rather, the mentality and effort needed to reach 10,000-ish hours of focused, deliberate practice separates masters from hobbyists.
It's impossible to do 10,000 hours in a week, or a month, or a year. Even 5 years would require near single-minded devotion to that one field. I think the only way to hit 10,000 hours in something is to love it, and to be willing to endure the learning discomfort which it involves; for 10ish years at least, but more likely for life.
Well said, Sam! I have enjoyed some of Gladwell's stuff, and although it's almost always worthy of nit-picking, the sentiment and insight is often very good.
I completely agree that this is more of a sentiment than something to measure, although it can certainly help us put our own training into context.
Where does mental training/practice fit in? I’ve had two instructors hammer the point that even study and visualization of techniques is massive which is why people should still come to class if injured to watch and listen. It gets absorbed on some level. Is there a difference in qualities of deliberate practice?
I think there is, yeah. I know for sure that video study can help you get good at things (like with jiu jitsu), thus BJJ Path and all those related educational products I've worked on over the years.
I wanted to make this piece SO much longer, but I made myself stop. Wanna pick up the baton at some point?
I think I have a perspective to add that fits within the scope of things I write about, but first, I’m about to get into depersonalization. I just can’t remember which post you wrote that it came up within.
Those are impressive numbers, no matter how you slice it! If the mob is ever after me, I'll know who to call. (The mob is known to settle debts via BJJ matches in a controlled, impartially judged environment.)
I was going to brag that I've achieved ultimate mastery in sleeping, but it's very hard to claim any of it was deliberate or pushed me outside my comfort zone. If anything, most of it was very much in my most comfortable zone.
I thought about this in the context of writing, too. This sort of "explain a topic and make it interesting" technical writing has been in my world for a really long time now, probably all the way back to the mid 90s punk zines I was working on, and then websites/blogs, and then journalism.
Probably only some of that counts for deliberate practice, but I have to imagine that the actual writing potion adds up to a gargantuan sum of hours.
14 hours a week x 50 weeks = 700 hours. Seemed more impressive in my head before I threw any actual numbers out there!
I feel like this is the point in the conversation where we should transition to talking about The Wolf of Wall Street scene where Matthew McConaughey goes, "Those are rookie numbers!"
I enjoyed your musing on your 10,000 hour bjj progress! I wonder how much of those 10,000 are "dead hours" meaning: can you achieve mastery in less time, but with a lifestyle that facilitates growth in those areas (i.e. 7+ hours of sleep, healthy diet and lifestyle, etc).
I'm thinking back to when I was 18 years old lifting weights in the gym, I would sometimes hit close to 20 sets of legs SOLELY ON SQUATS. The week probably accumulated close to 30-40 sets of legs. New science is showing that to build muscle you really only need somewhere from 10-20 sets a week per muscle group.
In that same vein, I wonder if 10,000 hours are truly needed.
I think the younger you are, the more you can practice in a day, but I also wonder about retaining all that knowledge. How much good is it to train, say, 10 hours in a day? Is it more valuable/useful to train for three intensive 2-hour sessions? Almost certainly, but my main thought here is that cramming too much training in too short of a period of time will result in diminishing returns. I think each individual's point where that happens is different, though.
That is certainly true. The consideration of spacing of the hours is also important!
I wonder if the hours are optimally spaced and properly nourished, how many are truly needed?
It does seem that if one were to wake up, train for 2 hours and rest, train for 2 more hours 6 hours later, rest again, and end the night with a 2 hour train, it would certainly seem to be learned quicker than 10 straight hours.
Would be hard to conduct a scientific study around this, but if you took two twins and enrolled them in a similar endeavor one doing constant training hours sequentially, the other spacing the hours and then testing mastery in each after say, 500 hours, seeing which is closer to mastery
When I was training intensely, it was always stuff like 3-a-days. Those little breaks were for eating, resting, and recovering (and goofing off). That proved most effective for me personally, and by far.
This is a topic with a whole lot of layers underneath it! I could have written at least 3x this much today, but at a point, I need to stop. Could be a very interesting opportunity for a follow up piece, though!
Lol. I love this and especially the ending. I've always been a fan of the 10,000 hours mantra, but you've effectively questioned that exact number.
I had roughly 2,400 hours of training in my five years of olympic weightlifting. It seemed like a lot, three hours a week, three to four days a week, but I know that I could have continued for another 10 years and would not have achieved mastery. Those lifts were just that technical, and getting better is all about fine tuning.
Congrats on 10,000 hours and 1,000 subscribers right here on this newsletter!
Hey, thanks so much! The 1000 subscriber thing is neat.
One thing I wanted to say near the end (but couldn't bring myself to edit/add more after I got my punchline in there!) was that this is more of a guideline, and the principle is good. You need a LOT of deliberate practice time in order to get really good at something, and people almost always overestimate how good they can get in a short time, and so on.
Once you've dedicated yourself to a craft for years, and you see how much better people are who are more dedicated/talented/experienced, you start to really get the idea of how much more is humanly possible.
Well, I think one things that stalls a lot of people is that in the beginning you tend to make a lot of improvements fast and that levels off after you’ve been doing it for awhile. Getting to those higher levels become more difficult, and a lot of people tap out or move on.
That's a really great point, and it happens ALL the time in BJJ. People quit at blue belt frequently, and that's the first belt after white (but it can take several years to get there).
As I, and now my kid's piano teacher says: "Practice makes permanent." The 10,000 hour 'rule' only works if it's good form. Most of my work is spent breaking bad habits in thought, work, and design even, and especially if, they have 10K hours in on it.
The paraeto principle also falls in here. 20% will get you 80% and that might be enough.
One other thing that comes to mind and seems apt: "Perfect practice makes perfect", with emphasis on that first perfect.
(I might modify it so it's "proper practice makes perfect")
I prefer deliberate practice. Intentionally practicing every week with such reasonable hours will let you discover other things that you wouldn't when you do it partially. But this of course shouldn't be attached to outcome because that's where you will lose the focus. You only play to play and not win. But above all, it is really hard and requires a high intensity kind of resilience less you stop.
I like to try to do deliberate practice in my writing, making sure I "stretch" at least a few times each week. I think it's really important for us to evolve and improve as writers. I keep thinking about writing in the context of sports (for me, jiu jitsu), because both require patience, focus, and deliberate practice for many years to begin to master.
Jiu jiutsu can be your favorite pick because it's sport that you've been doing for many years and you have deep perspectives that we don't know and can help us understand how to remain resilient in our everyday life of constant knocks.
I bet you can draw upon your previous athletic experience, too! Analogies like that are really useful from time to time.
In my world repetition is key, I guess that's true for many disciplines. I have spent quite a bit of time deliberately honing my craft. On the other hand in the kitchen at least, a lot of learning is done through osmosis or the absorption of knowledge from others. I have thought of the 10,000 hour rule throughout my career, wondering am I a master yet, like somebody's going to tell me when that happens. Then imposter syndrome takes over. I have been practicing, learning, thinking about my craft for well over 10,000 hours but I still don't consider myself a master because there's always something to learn. It's funny how that works.
I bet all the time in restaurants I had put together amounted to over 10,000 hours, but I would also bet that a third of that time was more like cleaning (sweeping, mopping, cleaning my stations), and maybe another third was just stuff I was already good at. That other third, though: that's the sweet spot.
I bet you've got way over 10,000 hours of deliberate time, just getting better at things. Do you sometimes do something different when you're prepping just because it's new to you? I know that's how I think about jiu jitsu (and, increasingly, writing).
Love this. I know I do. It's recommended for optimal growth and for your mind to stretch it do something new. I think taking a different approach is a really great way to further build a skill.
Often times when I was younger I would volunteer to work an unfamiliar station during a crazy rush to challenge myself or test my metal if you will. And yes I do assign myself tasks while prepping that I may not perform regularly for that very reason. In writing, I have been recently writing fiction in my spare time in order to be a more well rounded writer, which is my next life goal.
Dude, that's awesome. Let's get good at writing together!
Let's do it! My son and I are writing a book for kids around his age between 9-11. He writes and then I edit/ghost write and kinda direct the flow. We are going to publish through Amazon when we are finished, I am excited to see the finished product.
That's really cool! I wonder if there's value in telling folks here about this project. Either way, you are both gonna learn so much.
It should be a cool experience, challenging enough for both of us and fun at the same time.
So true.
So let me be the first to say that "Mastery" isn't all that it's cracked up to be. Everyone wants their skill acknowledged. But even in a place like chess where there are strict rules of who does and doesn't count as a Master, and there are Levels of Master, that doesn't mean that even at the top level that a person with that title will automatically garner respect.
Pursuit of Mastery of a subject is excellent. I applaud anyone who seeks to make themselves better. But don't lose sight that mastery is only part of who you are.
Well said, Mike! Many would consider a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu black belt to be "master" level, but within that spectrum, there is no upper bound, so there's tremendous discrepancy between an entry level black belt and, say, a world champion, or even a gym owner who has been a black belt for 15+ years. I agree completely with this framework and observation.
One of my favorite books :) however, the effectiveness of practice can depend on many factors, including the nature of the skill, the method of practice, and the individual’s innate abilities.
SO much. This was probably too short, given the scope of what needs to be said about the rule.
This article cemented Im a jack of all trades and master of none!! As I was reading, not only was I stuck by how much time 10,000 hours is, but also how much this article reminded me of your article regarding driving to the moon. If this article was constructed with more of that bedtime math, you may have mastered that art! Does mastery count if it’s not with deliberate action of the art, but with deliberate action of the goal?
I'm glad this resonated! And yes, this is definitely tangentially related to the moon piece (if anyone's curious/nerdy/bored enough to check this out, you might really like it): https://goatfury.substack.com/p/driving-to-the-moon
I don't really know what truly constitutes "mastery", but it's probably a spectrum that can be fairly wide depending on interpretation. I think it doesn't matter too much how you got there once you're there, although some ways are more efficient than others.
Andrew, thank you for this article. It gives me such hope!
In September, I started playing the violin, just for my own enjoyment, following YouTube instructors. I can manage *maybe* 2 hours a week when no one is home (except the cats who retreat downstairs and hide) to hear my screeching. According to Gladwell's theory, I'll become proficient when I'm... (calculating...) 162! My mom lived to 100, and with today's technology, who knows?!
I'll let you know when I attain mastery.
Keep me posted! You got this.
Be sure to drink lots of water.
Andrew, this is a great piece that puts mastery into perspective. It's very difficult to calculate those hours in different disciplines. I one asked a senior partner who had practiced law for 25 years -- let's say 2,000 hours annually at least -- at what point he felt comfortable, and he said 10 years (so 20,000 hours). That was daunting, but it makes sense.
And look who snuck into the photo !! As for the mat photo, is the man instructing you guys who I think it is? RG?
The fella instructing Trey and me through the move in that pic is Aaron Lapointe, a friend who is a BJJ black belt with a very distinguishing feature: he has one functioning arm. Aaron's approach to BJJ is very different, and I've found a lot of value in training with him and listening to him over the years!
@Andrew Smith ... deliberate practice ... 10,000 hours ... mastery ... all of this is fascinating me as I make another dive into learning Spanish ... this time, my intention is going deeper than before. As you talk about learning precision movements, it makes me yearn for certainty ... "do it precisely this way" and performance evaluation.
It seems like mastering physical tasks such as BJJ and violins lend themselves to that switching moment when your body, your hands or feet, suddenly "feel" how to do something. And teachers have a path laid out to get you from white belt to black belt. While there are a ton of language learning resources in the world, it feels like there are a thousand hiking trails leading off into the woods with few signs along the way.
As always, you provide so much food for thought. Thank you.
Thanks, Joyce! I also wanted to talk about how my fingers and hands seem to know what to do, too, but I wonder how much "expertise" I really have in writing. I'm working on it, to be sure. We're all students in this long journey.
I struggled taking the back from guard this morning. However, the older gentleman (and more experienced BJJ practitioner) who drilled with me told me two things that made my day: 1. "I can see how the gears are turning in your head." 2. He's not in a rush to get to the next belt.
"Practice makes progress" is my favorite remix of "Practice makes perfect."
Excellent. Also: perfect practice makes perfect works! Take the time to understand things, and you'll have a much, much better shot at sticking with this long term. Good job, Walther!
This was my favorite article of yours so far; I do my own "adding up the hours" all the time.
I've read half-a-dozen or so of Gladwell's books and listened to a few of his podcast episodes. Outliers was certainly his best work.
I don't think it's about hitting a magic number (someone who stops at 9,999 hours isn't going to be automatically worse at a skill than someone who hit the 10,000). Rather, the mentality and effort needed to reach 10,000-ish hours of focused, deliberate practice separates masters from hobbyists.
It's impossible to do 10,000 hours in a week, or a month, or a year. Even 5 years would require near single-minded devotion to that one field. I think the only way to hit 10,000 hours in something is to love it, and to be willing to endure the learning discomfort which it involves; for 10ish years at least, but more likely for life.
Well said, Sam! I have enjoyed some of Gladwell's stuff, and although it's almost always worthy of nit-picking, the sentiment and insight is often very good.
I completely agree that this is more of a sentiment than something to measure, although it can certainly help us put our own training into context.
Wondering how much context, relativity, and context matter to mastery?
A lot! There's so much more to say here.
Where does mental training/practice fit in? I’ve had two instructors hammer the point that even study and visualization of techniques is massive which is why people should still come to class if injured to watch and listen. It gets absorbed on some level. Is there a difference in qualities of deliberate practice?
I think there is, yeah. I know for sure that video study can help you get good at things (like with jiu jitsu), thus BJJ Path and all those related educational products I've worked on over the years.
I wanted to make this piece SO much longer, but I made myself stop. Wanna pick up the baton at some point?
I think I have a perspective to add that fits within the scope of things I write about, but first, I’m about to get into depersonalization. I just can’t remember which post you wrote that it came up within.
Hey, as long as the idea is good, I'm all for it!
Side note: a purple belt was going for something akin to your old "ankle Americana" today.
Must be a genius.
I told him to go look up the one we shot that's now up on BJJ Path!
https://bjjpath.com/article/Unconventional-Side-Control-Escapes-a-BJJ-Tutorial
I forgot about that. I’m basically a legend.
Those are impressive numbers, no matter how you slice it! If the mob is ever after me, I'll know who to call. (The mob is known to settle debts via BJJ matches in a controlled, impartially judged environment.)
I was going to brag that I've achieved ultimate mastery in sleeping, but it's very hard to claim any of it was deliberate or pushed me outside my comfort zone. If anything, most of it was very much in my most comfortable zone.
So I keep looking.
I thought about this in the context of writing, too. This sort of "explain a topic and make it interesting" technical writing has been in my world for a really long time now, probably all the way back to the mid 90s punk zines I was working on, and then websites/blogs, and then journalism.
Probably only some of that counts for deliberate practice, but I have to imagine that the actual writing potion adds up to a gargantuan sum of hours.
What you're saying is, if the Mob has Writing Challenges (Write-Offs?), you got my back as well?!
It feels like you've clocked in several thousand hours into Goatfury Writes alone at this point. (Math be damned.)
14 hours a week x 50 weeks = 700 hours. Seemed more impressive in my head before I threw any actual numbers out there!
I feel like this is the point in the conversation where we should transition to talking about The Wolf of Wall Street scene where Matthew McConaughey goes, "Those are rookie numbers!"
ABC, man. Always Be Calculating-your-numbers-before-you-brag-about-them.
I enjoyed your musing on your 10,000 hour bjj progress! I wonder how much of those 10,000 are "dead hours" meaning: can you achieve mastery in less time, but with a lifestyle that facilitates growth in those areas (i.e. 7+ hours of sleep, healthy diet and lifestyle, etc).
I'm thinking back to when I was 18 years old lifting weights in the gym, I would sometimes hit close to 20 sets of legs SOLELY ON SQUATS. The week probably accumulated close to 30-40 sets of legs. New science is showing that to build muscle you really only need somewhere from 10-20 sets a week per muscle group.
In that same vein, I wonder if 10,000 hours are truly needed.
I think the younger you are, the more you can practice in a day, but I also wonder about retaining all that knowledge. How much good is it to train, say, 10 hours in a day? Is it more valuable/useful to train for three intensive 2-hour sessions? Almost certainly, but my main thought here is that cramming too much training in too short of a period of time will result in diminishing returns. I think each individual's point where that happens is different, though.
That is certainly true. The consideration of spacing of the hours is also important!
I wonder if the hours are optimally spaced and properly nourished, how many are truly needed?
It does seem that if one were to wake up, train for 2 hours and rest, train for 2 more hours 6 hours later, rest again, and end the night with a 2 hour train, it would certainly seem to be learned quicker than 10 straight hours.
Would be hard to conduct a scientific study around this, but if you took two twins and enrolled them in a similar endeavor one doing constant training hours sequentially, the other spacing the hours and then testing mastery in each after say, 500 hours, seeing which is closer to mastery
When I was training intensely, it was always stuff like 3-a-days. Those little breaks were for eating, resting, and recovering (and goofing off). That proved most effective for me personally, and by far.
This is a topic with a whole lot of layers underneath it! I could have written at least 3x this much today, but at a point, I need to stop. Could be a very interesting opportunity for a follow up piece, though!
Lol. I love this and especially the ending. I've always been a fan of the 10,000 hours mantra, but you've effectively questioned that exact number.
I had roughly 2,400 hours of training in my five years of olympic weightlifting. It seemed like a lot, three hours a week, three to four days a week, but I know that I could have continued for another 10 years and would not have achieved mastery. Those lifts were just that technical, and getting better is all about fine tuning.
Congrats on 10,000 hours and 1,000 subscribers right here on this newsletter!
Hey, thanks so much! The 1000 subscriber thing is neat.
One thing I wanted to say near the end (but couldn't bring myself to edit/add more after I got my punchline in there!) was that this is more of a guideline, and the principle is good. You need a LOT of deliberate practice time in order to get really good at something, and people almost always overestimate how good they can get in a short time, and so on.
Once you've dedicated yourself to a craft for years, and you see how much better people are who are more dedicated/talented/experienced, you start to really get the idea of how much more is humanly possible.
Well, I think one things that stalls a lot of people is that in the beginning you tend to make a lot of improvements fast and that levels off after you’ve been doing it for awhile. Getting to those higher levels become more difficult, and a lot of people tap out or move on.
That's a really great point, and it happens ALL the time in BJJ. People quit at blue belt frequently, and that's the first belt after white (but it can take several years to get there).