How to become an expert

https://psyche.co/guides/how-to-become-an-expert-and-navigate-the-bumps-along-the-way

Becoming expert can’t be measured in terms of time alone. It’s more about the kind of responsibility you’re taking. What follows will provide you with a map, sketching the landscape to help you pinpoint your position on the journey toward expertise in whatever you’ve chosen to do.

The Apprentice stage

Ask yourself these questions:

• Am I doing what other people tell me to do, rather than working on my own?
• Am I struggling with tedium and boredom, when someone else could do these tasks better and faster?
• Am I frustrated that I’m not making progress as quickly as I think I should?
• Am I asking myself if I’ve made the right choice in deciding to do this at all?

At first you’re working under supervision, learning to do things as they are already done, and directed by people more experienced than you. It’s hard to put a number on it, but usually this involves five to seven years of repetitive work.

The Journeyman stage

Ask yourself these questions:

• Have I completed a long and arduous training for the work I’ve decided I want to do?
• Am I now taking full responsibility for my work and the people who experience it?
• Am I keen to show off my knowledge and skill?
• Am I worried that I’ll get things wrong and make mistakes, now that I’m on my own?

By now, you’ve become independent. This may seem like a straightforward transition from the Apprentice stage, but it isn’t as simple as it sounds. It’s easy to focus on yourself and how pleased you are to be going out into the world on your own. You’ve probably passed tests or exams. You may be acquiring qualifications. However, all those months and years of practice and training only make sense when your work is ‘for’ someone or something beyond yourself. That might be your patients, customers, audience, clients, fellow performers – whatever makes sense in your line of work.

Richard McDougall, a leading close-up magician, explained it to me like this: ‘You have to realise that your work is not about you but about them.’ For McDougall, them referred to his audience.

Another important change at this stage involves taking ownership of your identity. In that sense, it is about you, because you’re developing your uniqueness, what makes you you – what jazz musicians describe as ‘voice’. You’re moving from being a cog in someone else’s machine to having agency and individuality of your own.

A final development during the Journeyman stage is the all-important ability to improvise. Experts read and respond to each new situation as it evolves, bringing into play at a moment’s notice the skills and strategies they’ve developed over years or decades. Successful improvisation is a hallmark of expert practice, yet it’s often overlooked and undervalued. Once you can improvise well, responding effectively without the need for conscious thought and deliberation, you know you’re getting close to mastery.

The Master stage

Ask yourself these questions:

• Am I responsible for the work and career development of other people who are working under my supervision or guidance?
• Do I feel a sense of commitment to the area or field I’ve spent so long working in, and do I want to put something back in?
• Do I also feel I’m a fraud who doesn’t really deserve the position I’ve reached – and constantly wonder when I’ll be found out?

You continue to deepen your understanding. Now you’re not only adept in the components of your work, but you can see other people’s trajectories and support them in the choices they make. It’s a time when you can make a big difference to others. You’re building relationships of care with the people who are following the path you’re already on. You widen your awareness from the things they are doing to the person they are striving to become, and you help where you can. Your guidance here can have a huge impact on others.

I’ll finish with some thoughts about what it means to become a true expert, and how you can tell if someone really is expert or is just pretending. One yardstick is how long they’ve been on their path. Unless you’ve spent years learning your craft, you’ll almost certainly not be expert, though just because you’ve been doing something for decades doesn’t mean you will be. So anyone who professes to be expert in something after a couple of months is unlikely to be the real thing.

Another is how people describe themselves. Hardly any of the experts I’ve worked with would describe themselves in that way. Although they are justly proud of the quality of their work, they are much more aware of how far they have to go than how far they’ve come. So it’s worth reserving judgment about self-professed experts and making up your own mind.