To put this another way, a self-taught learner essentially has to do link not tracked and link not tracked, both of which are discrete skills themselves.
In sum, applying deliberate practice in service of our careers is way more challenging than Ericsson makes it appear. I find myself continuously struggling when putting his ideas to practice, and I really dislike the hundred and one self-help blog posts that parrot his findings without attempting to apply them. Deliberate practice in the sorts of skills that we rely on in our careers is hard, because coming up with effective training methods is hard.
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coming up with training methods for deliberate practice is hard^hard-to-apply-deliberate-practice-in-our-careers