You likely know, or have at least heard of, Malcom Gladwell’s 10,000 hour rule popularized in his book Outliers: If you put 10,000 hours of deliberate practice into any skill, you too can become a master.

This rule explains the Beatles success. They performed live in Hamburg 1,200 times from 1960 – 1964 before they became the most well known rock band in history. Their first album stayed at the top of UK charts for 30 weeks, and all but one of their first twelve albums hit #1 on national charts.

10,000 hours explains the wild success of Bill Gates. He began putting nights of coding practice in on the local high school computer starting at 13 allowing him to hit 10,000 hours of practice before co-founding Microsoft at the age of 20.

This rule is so well known that famous artists like Macklemore & Ryan Lewis have attributed their success and written songs about it:

Ten thousand hours I’m so damn close I can taste it

On some Malcolm Gladwell, David Bowie meets Kanye shit

This is dedication

A life lived for art is never a life wasted

Ten thousand

– Macklemore & Ryan Lewis

10,000 hours has become so popular because its simple: If you work hard at anything you can be successful. While a few research papers have debated whether this rule is true, that’s not what I’ve decided to write about.

I’m focusing on why the 10,000 rule can actually lead you in the wrong direction.

What does 10,000 hours cost you?

This rule, at its core, glorifies the sheer volume of work you need to put in to be the best, to be a “master” at a skill. It takes 0.1% of high-achievers and puts them on a pedestal and shouts “they worked hard and that’s why they were so successful, you can be successful if you work hard too!”.

This thinking completely leaves out the much larger portion of people who also put their 10,000 hours in, but did not make it. Think of the failed entrepreneurs, Olympic hopefuls (athletes who didn’t make the games), or unknown artists who never made it big. This group is vastly larger than the small group who “made it”.

A singular focus on achievement in one field may be worth it for some, but many others realize, often too late, that they would have rather spent their time somewhere else. I have put 10,000 hours into achieving my own athletic dreams and while it got me far, it did not get me as far enough to make me happy.

Few people take into account what 10,000 hours truly costs: 10,000 hours of your life. They only think about what you can achieve.

If you devoted that time elsewhere, how many other skills do you think you might be able to develop in 10,000 hours?

According to another fun (and likely over simplistic) rule, the number is right around 500.

Welcome To The 20 Hour Rule

Recently popularized by the author Josh Kaufman the 20 hour rule states you can learn any skill with 20 hours of deliberate practice. Any skill at all, just takes 20 hours learn. For many of us, that’s 20 hours well spent.

Want to learn how to play the guitar? – 20 Hours.

Ride a unicycle? – 20 Hours.

Repair your car? – 20 Hours.

Learn photoshop? – 20 Hours.

While you will not end up being the best in the world after 20 hours or even come close to mastering the skill, you will develop a better sense of what you’re good at and enjoy. You’ll also become a more well rounded person overall.

Many societal pressures currently force us to specialize. Whether or not it’s to get a good education, make it in that important career, or just so you can say you’re the best at something, specialization has its advantages. It’s not the only way to approach life though, and sometimes it can be important to take a step back and consciously understand the different ways you can allocate your time.

The majority of us will not follow the path of Bill Gates or The Beatles and discover early on we truly enjoy doing in life. It will take many years of learning and exploring new skills until we finally get to the point where it will be worth it to put those 10,000 hours in.

It’s always important to strive for excellence, but life is long.

It’s equally important to try a lot of things and figure out what we enjoy.