10,000 Hours to Become an expert

It has been estimated that it takes 10,000 hours, 1,000,000 repetitions, or up to 10 years of training to become an expert in anything.
The average person spends nine years of his life watching television. The average woman spends 17 years of her life trying to lose weight. That’s almost a fourth of her life.

And the saddest statistic of all is this one: the average American spends 11 hours a day in front of electronic media. Which, depending on your purpose for spending that much time on electronics, it could be a good or bad thing.
I’ve noticed over the years that I have had less and less free time as I’ve progressed through Jacksonville State University’s General Science and Education Program as I’ve had harder and harder assignments. I’ve spent more and more time studying to keep up with the 300 level courses, and I’ve pursued more impactful hobbies like writing and coaching.
However, to compensate for my lack of free time, I’ve had to learn good time management skills. If I want to become an expert in writing, I’m going to have to spend up to 10,000 hours exercising my abilities. Currently, I probably only spend four hours a week writing.
(4 hrs/wk) x (52 wks) = 208 hours/year
(10,000 hours) / 208 hours/year = 48 years
This means at my current rate of writing; I will not become an expert until I’m sixty-nine years old. So, I have a decision to make. Do I dedicate more time to writing, and take away time from something else in my life that I see as less valuable?
If I decided to cut out social media—which I know I spend at least an hour a day on as of now—I could write for eleven hours a week. Redoing the previous calculation. It would only take ~17.5 years to become an expert in writing; meaning I would be an expert on my 39th birthday.
So, we all need to think about how we are spending our time. It could be useful to write down and keep track of how we are spending our time, so we can see the areas where we are really wasting our time.
Now, here is the convicting part. How much time are you spending investing in becoming an expert on the Bible? How much time are spending sharpening your sword to serve the Lord by memorizing scripture? How often do we find ourselves in a situation where we know what someone is saying is unbiblical, but we don’t know the verse to reprove them? It’s incredibly important to memorize and study scripture.
I personally only read a chapter from the Old Testament in the morning, and a chapter from the New Testament at night. This totals maybe an hour, probably closer to 45 minutes of time invested in the scriptures; with lately, no real commitment to memorizing scripture. At this rate, I won’t be an expert on the Bible until I’m fifty-eight. Not too bad, but there’s a lot of time in between where I won’t be prepared for Spiritual battles, and that is why you need someone in your life who can help you during those hard times.
Because in reality, you will never be an expert on the Bible, there will always be some piece of scripture that you forgot, or some deep Greek-translated text that gives new meaning. So, it’s important to have people around you who are also studying scripture fervently, so they can share their research and revelations from the Holy Spirit.
Needless to say, I want to start incorporating a scripture to memorize each week! So I can be held accountable by my readers, and I can hold you guys accountable! This week’s scripture:
John 3:30 “He must increase, but I must decrease.”
Such a powerful verse, truly humbling. I must decrease, but God must increase! I must die to myself every day. This means that I should make my blog less about myself, and more about God. I should make my coaching less about myself, and more about glorifying God. I should make my writing less about glorifying myself and my name, and more about glorifying God’s name.
Nevertheless, we probably don’t spend enough time on things that really matter. And we all want to be experts at things, but were not putting in the man hours to become experts at anything. If we want to be experts in a chosen field, whether that be basketball, writing, or teaching; we must invest the sincere focused hours.
So, in conclusion, we must consider how we are spending our time, and the things that are important to us. Are you approaching 1,000,000 repetitions in the area that you want to be an expert in? Currently, I’m not, but I hope you are! Hopefully this message will motivate you to manage your time in a more productive, Christ-centered kind of way!
Cite: Faucett, D. (2017). 10,000 Hours to Become an Expert. Faucett Journal. Retrieved from http://www.faucettjournal.com/articles/10000-hours