Become an Expert in your Field

Want to become an expert but are unsure of what to do? Here are 6 tips to get you started on the journey!

1. Deliberate Practice: repeat, repeat, repeat! Perform the same or similar tasks, look for immediate feedback to change performance and self-regulate your practice: consult, evaluate, and reflect (Salas & Rosen, 2010).
2. Talk with colleagues and reflect. This will help you develop competence and professional skills to advance in your field (Salas & Rosen, 2010).
3. Continuous Learning: never stop learning! Seize every opportunity to further your knowledge and skills as well as to improve and sustain high levels of performance (Salas & Rosen, 2010).
4. Look for intrinsic motivation: develop your self-efficacy and goal orientation, value the ultimate outcome to create a target, and improve without needing rewards (Salas & Rosen, 2010).
5. Define long-term plans and revisit them: research shows that it takes an average of 10 years to achieve expertise, so as you practice and improve, keep in mind that expertise is a marathon, not a sprint; endurance is key (Ericsson, 2018; Salas & Rosen, 2010).
6. Seek Feedback: ask for input from those with higher expertise, reflect on it, and integrate it in your practice to hone your performance (Salas & Rosen, 2010).

Expertise is a combination of hard/smart work (be strategic in your efforts), a stimulating environment that allows and encourages you to thrive in your field, and the motivation that drives you to continue to practice and aim higher (van de Wiel, Szegedi & Weggeman, 2004). Your expertise finish line doesn’t only feel like it’s moving; it actually is! As you improve and hone your professional skills, you become increasingly aware of how much you can improve and how vast your field really is. Focus on small victories and cherish the process of working on yourself.

References:

Ericsson, K. A. (2018). Differential influence of experience, practice, and deliberate practice on the development of superior individual performance of experts. In K. A. Ericsson, R. R. Hoffman, A. Kozbelt, & A. M. Williams (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of expertise and expert performance (2^nd ed.) (pp.745-769). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Salas, E., Rosen, M. A. (2010). Experts at work: Principles for developing expertise in organizations. In S. W. J. Kozlowski, & E. Salas (Eds.), Learning, training, and development in organizations. (pp. 99-134). New York, NY: Routledge/Taylor & Francis.

van de Wiel, M. W. J., Szegedi, K. H. P., & Weggeman, M. C. D. P. (2004). Professional learning: Deliberate attempts at developing expertise. In H. P. A. Boshuizen, R. Bromme & H. Gruber (Eds.), Professional learning: Gaps and transitions on the way from novice to expert (pp. 181-206). Dordrecht: Kluwer

By: Teresa Aires