Does Practicing Something A Lot Make You Better At It?
Have you ever been told, “Practice makes perfect”? Many believe that if you do something for 10,000 hours, you’ll become an expert at it. But is that really true?
I recently wondered about this. I thought about the things I’ve practiced a lot. Did I really spend 10,000 hours on them? And did I get better at everything I practiced that much?
Before I share my thoughts, try this quick activity: Think of 5 things you’re good at and 5 things you’re not so good at. Now, guess how much time you’ve spent on each one. Did you find that you’re only good at the things you’ve spent the most time on? Are there some things you’ve done a lot but still aren’t great at?
Here’s what I discovered about myself:
Simply doing something a lot doesn’t always make you better. For example, I’ve been singing for as long as I can remember. But honestly, I’m not that great at it. Just singing every day isn’t enough. To truly improve, I’d need a plan. Maybe a singing coach to guide me. I’d have to check my progress, learn from mistakes, and avoid making the same ones again.
So, here’s the big idea: If you keep doing something the wrong way, you won’t get better. In fact, you might just get really good at doing it wrong! Improving takes effort and intention. Just repeating something isn’t enough; you need to actively try to get better.
Dr. Ehoneah Obed (Pharmacist, Software Engineer, Health Informatician, Founder)
My work focuses on identity engineering, which is the deliberate process of designing and updating who you are, personally and professionally.
Most people experience identity as something fixed or accidental. It is shaped by parents, early success or failure, education, and society’s definition of what a “good life” looks like. They adapt to it rather than questioning it. What most people do not realize is that identity is not just something you discover. It is something you can actively engineer.
Personal identity engineering is about gaining control over how your beliefs, values, and self-concept are formed and reinforced.
Professional identity engineering is about translating that internal identity into skills, work, leverage, and visible contribution in the world.
When people feel stuck, it is rarely because they lack motivation or talent. It is because they are trying to change outcomes while leaving the underlying identity system untouched. Careers stall. Confidence collapses. Direction feels unclear. The system keeps producing the same results.
I learned this by rebuilding myself multiple times.
I trained as a pharmacist for six years. While working in hospitals, I began learning to code alongside my job. That led to building real software, selling products, transitioning into software engineering, completing a master’s degree in health informatics at the University of Toronto, and now building startups and systems full time. Each transition followed the same pattern. My identity did not change because I thought differently. It changed because I took specific actions that produced new evidence, and that evidence forced a new story about who I was capable of being.
That is the core mechanism behind identity engineering.
Identity updates when you intentionally generate evidence that contradicts your old self-image, then compound that evidence until the old identity can no longer run the system.
This blog is where I document that process. I write about how to design identity experiments that are small, controlled, and reversible. How to build proof-of-work that changes both how you see yourself and how the world responds to you. How to move forward without waiting for clarity, confidence, or permission.
This is not motivation and it is not coaching. It is systems thinking applied to human change.
I also write The Ledger, a weekly record of systems and experiments for building a life you own.
And I built the Identity Audit, a diagnostic tool that helps you understand your current identity state before you attempt to change it.
I am not presenting a finished theory. I am engineering this in real time, using my own life as the test environment. If you want more agency over who you are becoming, both personally and professionally, you are in the right place.
