TED演讲：只需要20小时，你就能学会任何事情

Hi, everyone.‌‌ One of the things that I enjoy‌‌ is learning new things. How long does it take‌‌ to acquire a new skill?‌‌ Do you know what I found‌‌?

10000 hours? 

No! ‌I am never going to be able to learn anything new‌ ever again.‌‌ 

But that's not true. The 10000-hour rule came out of studies of expert-level performance,‌‌ professional athletes, world-class musicians, and the folks at the tippy top of their fields put in around 10000 hours‌‌ of practice. But that last statement, it takes 10000 hours to learn something. It's not true. 

This is the learning curve, and the story of the learning curve is when you start,‌‌ you're grossly incompetent and you know it. With a little bit of practice, you get really good really quick, and then at a certain point you reach a plateau, and subsequent gains become ‌‌much harder to get. How long does it take‌‌ from starting something and being grossly incompetent and knowing it to be reasonably good? Here's what my research says‌‌: 

20 hours, that's it.‌‌ 

You can go from knowing nothing. If you put 20 hours of focused deliberate practice into that thing, you will be astounded‌‌ at how good you are. 20 hours is do-able, It's about 45 minutes a day‌‌ for about a month,‌‌ there's a method to doing this. 

The first‌‌ is to deconstruct the skill, decide exactly what you want to be able to do and break it down‌‌ into smaller and smaller pieces. The more you're able to decide what are the parts of the skill that will actually help me get to what I want. You'll be able to improve your performance‌‌ in the least amount of time possible.‌‌ 

The second is to learn enough to self-correct. Get 3 to 5 resources about what it is you're trying to learn, it could be books,‌‌ could be courses, could be anything. What you want to do is learn just enough‌‌ that you can actually practice and self-correct. Noticing when you're making a mistake and doing something a little different.‌‌ 

The third is to remove barriers to practice‌‌-distractions, television, internet.

And the fourth‌‌ is to practice for at least‌‌ 20 hours. Now most skills have what I call a frustration barrier. By committing to practicing whatever it is you want to do for at least 20 hours. You will be able to overcome that initial frustration barrier and stick with the practice long enough to actually reap the rewards. 

That's it. It's not rocket science. The major barrier to learning something new is not intellectual. The major barrier is emotional. Feeling stupid doesn't feel good and in the beginning of‌‌ learning anything new If you feel really stupid. But‌‌, for 20 hours on anything.‌‌ Want to learn a language?‌‌ Want to learn how to cook? Want to learn how to draw? Go out and do that thing.‌‌ It only takes 20 hours.‌‌ 

Have fun.‌

词汇例句：

grossly: Much of the money was grossly misspend. 很多钱都被挥霍了。

incompetent: He wants the power to fire incompetent employees. 他希望有权解雇不称职的员工。

plateau: The phone market now appears to have reached a plateau. 手机市场目前似乎已进入一个稳定阶段。

subsequent: Subsequent events comfirmed our doubts. 后来发生的事证实了我们的怀疑。

frustration: It was a time fraught with difficulites and frustraion. 这是一个充满

stick with: When you have a winner, stick with it. 如果你胜券在握，那你就坚持到底。

reap: You'll soon begin to reap the benefits of being fitter. 你很快就会获得身体更健康带来的好处。