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Q:  What do you call someone who plays in the NFL but doesn’t practice?

A:  Unemployed.

The NFL is not a multi-billion dollar industry by accident.  Sure it’s an exciting sport.  But at the heart of its success is the fact that everyone involved must practice to keep their job.  You must run efficient routes to be a great receiver.  Success as a quarterback means the ability to throw the ball with speed and accuracy.  Linemen must read blocking schemes and maintain a delicate balance of strength, weight, and agility.

The same is true of other sports.  To be a great golfer you must put in hours upon hours of practice.  If you want success in basketball you must spend hours practicing jump shots and free throws.

Sadly, where this is not true is in most of our jobs.  We can see the connection between success and practice in sports.  But we don’t make that connection as easily when it comes to accounting, leadership, or marketing.  Practice is for athletes.  Not white-collar jobs.  Or so the thinking goes.

Yet if you want to be exceptional, then you must practice.  It’s as simple as that.  That’s Tom Brady’s story.  And that’s what we can learn from the NFL.

Brady is an average quarterback, with average abilities.  At least he was.  But thanks to his ridiculous commitment to practice he has become a 5-time Super Bowl quarterback.  He’s probably the greatest at that position.  Not the most talented.  Just the greatest.  And as a Steelers fan, it pains me greatly to say that!

Can you say the same thing about Tom from accounting?  Has he practiced himself into a great accountant?  Or is he pretty much the same as he was 10 years ago?  How about you?  What does your practice regimen look like?  Do you even have one?

Practice isn’t just nice.  It’s necessary if you want to achieve your potential.  Even more so if you’re chasing your dreams.

So here’s 3 things you can do to start practicing.

1. Study more.  Yes you heard me right.  Studying is one of the best ways to stay on top of our disciplines.  Technology, knowledge, and laws all change too quickly for you to rest on what you learned when you were in school. Even if that was just last year.  For most of us it looks like reading.  But for others it might mean paying attention to speaking styles of great teachers or observing a master carpenter at work.

2. Put in your time.  But be deliberate.  We know from Malcom Gladwell’s book, Outliers and from Daniel Coyle’s book, The Talent Code, that you need to put in your time to excel at something. The worst thing you can do is spend hundreds of hours flailing around without direction. Figure out what you want to excel in, and then work up a plan.  Ironically Tom Brady’s college “rival” Drew Henson, who never made it in the NFL, gives us the perfect example of this.  He says, “I reached the level I did as a football and baseball player really being a 50 percent athlete my whole life.  It all works until you get to the very highest level of sports, when everybody is basically as good as you or better, but has more experience or is farther along the development line than you are, and you have to play catch-up.”  The same is true of business.

3. Review. In another brilliant book, The Accidental Creative, by Todd Henry, we see the role of review.  Without reviewing what we’ve learned and collected, the information is lost.  We don’t see the connections.  We don’t see the relationships.  And therefore all that effort is wasted.  Simply knowing more isn’t enough.  You need to be able to act on that information.

Maybe the reason you’re not great is that you’re just not practicing.  I know that sounds harsh, but is it true?  (And yes, yes, I know that other things matter too, such as luck and bringing your meaning to your work.  But practice and effort are major parts of that equation.)  So be honest.

Then be thankful you’re not in the NFL.

How do you practice?  Tell us in the comments!

Photo by Torsten Bolten, AFpix.de at Wikimedia Commons