If you want to become a great home run hitter, you don’t take batting practice off 100 miles-per-hour fastballs the first time you touch a bat.

You start on the tee. You take a lot of reps. You learn the fundamentals.

After a lot of practice, you might take your first live batting practice. Then eventually get some at bats in a game.

It doesn’t happen overnight. You must build up to it.

It takes time and a whole lot of reps to become the type of player who can hit home runs consistently.

But even the best home run hitters still need a lot of at bats in order to hit it out of the park.

In fact, Mark McGwire, the record-holder for career At Bats Per Home Run average, took nearly 11 at bats to hit one home run.

The best home run hitter of all time only hit it out of the park 9.4% of the time.

So how did he manage to hit a record-setting amount of home runs?

He got a lot of at bats. (And maybe the help of some PEDs. But this issue is really not the place to argue about that.)

Which is where today’s play comes in.

If you want to hit more home runs, there are two things you need to do. And I’m not just talking baseball here. This same advice applies to any domain.

Whatever arena you’re aiming to become great in, remember these two steps.

First, you must build up to it.

It will take time, experience, studying, practice, and a fair amount of failed attempts to become the type of person who can consistently hit it out of the park.

Second, you need a lot of at bats.

Even after you’ve put in the work to become great, you still need a lot of appearances at the plate.

Anytime you’re entering a new domain for the first time, expect a learning curve.

Invest the time and energy into developing your skills first. Mastery takes time to build up to.

But it doesn’t stop with gaining mastery. In fact, that’s just the beginning.

Once you’ve mastered something, you still need a lot of reps to create meaningful work. You may create meaningful work at a higher frequency of attempts than others. But not everything you create will be a home run.

Even the great ones need a lot of at bats.


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