prokopetz:

If you’re going to be giving advice on how to get better at something – and I’m thinking particularly of visual art, but applies to just about anything – then the key thing to understand is that most of the time, the reason that beginners don’t practice isn’t because they’re too lazy or because they’re looking for shortcuts, but because they don’t know how.

Engaging in productive practice is, itself, a skill that must be learned. Without it, what you’re doing isn’t practice: it’s just repetition, and all repetition does is reinforce existing shortcomings. If you’re good at what you do, you’ve probably sufficiently internalised that skill of how-to-practice that you don’t even realise you have it – which is a big problem when it comes to helping others improve!

Folks don’t need to be told to practice. They need to be told how to practice. There’s really no such thing as too much detail here – stuff that seems obvious to you almost certainly isn’t.