In their widely cited work, @1993ericssonRole argue that expert performance is not the result of innate ability, but the result of skills acquired through sustained deliberate practice, or repeated actions or activities that are performed with the specific intention to improve: “in deliberate practice we aim to improve not only the overall success of an action but also the means by which we achieve that success” (@2021fridlandIt, p. 1332). Crucially, deliberate practice involves identifying performance subgoals that structure the practice in which one engages:
As you engage in deliberate practice you seek out feedback about your performance, in the hopes of identifying and correcting errors. You keep monitoring your progress as you practice. If you do not seem to be progressing, you may need to redesign your practice sessions. If instead you keep up a steady progression, then at some point you achieve your current goal. At that point it is time to set out to strive to accomplish the next more difficult goal (i.e. you advance to planning how to achieve the next higher-ordered subgoal on the vertical hierarchy). This is how you improve upon your current level of performance. (Stichter 2018, cited in @2021fridlandIt).