Feedback is at the cornerstone of deep practice.  For without feedback practice is simply a meandering through some drills but without meaningful insight to correct your actions so as to improve your performance.  It is in the feedback and coaching that we build the neural circuitry to perform and improve.  Without the feedback neural pathways will still be reinforced but in the improper state.  And what we now know about neural pathways is that once a pathway has developed it is never undeveloped or disassembled.  We can create a new pathway, one that is better or more correct, but the old one remains forever.  And until the new pathway is stronger and more automatic, the old pathway will always compete for use.  Therefore, feedback is critical to creating the right pathways in the right way, especially early on in skill development.  Regardless of the skill you are trying to develop, seek out coaching to give you the right feedback so you can deeply practice and build the skills needed for excellence.

Although talent feels and looks predestined, in fact we have a good deal of control over what skills we develop, and we have more potential than we might ever presume to guess. Daniel Coyle

Mental mastery comes through conditioning, nothing more and nothing less.  Most of us have the same raw materials from the moment we take our first breath of air; what separates those people who achieve more than others or those that are happier than others is the way that they use and refine these raw materials.  When you dedicate yourself to transforming your inner world your life quickly shifts from the ordinary into the realm of the extraordinary. Robin Sharma

Daydreaming defeats practice; those of us who browse TV while working out will never reach the top ranks. Paying full attention seems to boost the mind’s processing speed, strengthen synaptic connections, and expand or create neural networks for what we are practicing. Daniel Goleman