Skills are really just circuits in your brain

The sweet spot: that productive, uncomfortable terrain located just beyond our current abilities, where our reach exceeds our grasp. Deep practice is not simply about struggling; it's about seeking a particular struggle, which involves a cycle of distinct actions.

Deep practice feels a bit like exploring a dark and unfamiliar room. You start slowly, you bump into furniture, stop, think, and start again. Slowly, and a little painfully, you explore the space over and over, attending to errors, extending your reach into the room a bit farther each time, building a mental map until you can move through it quickly and intuitively.

I discovered when I went all out, when I put 100 percent of my energy into some intense, impossible task - when my heart was jack-hammering, when lactic acid was sizzling through my muscles - that's when I felt good, normal, balanced.

Skills are really just circuits in your brain

The solution is to ignore the bad habit and put your energy toward building a new habit that will override the old one.

There is no substitute for attentive repetition.