For those reading who don’t know me, I’m a musician. I play the piano, and throughout time I have learned how to practice. The secret to effective practice is spending time on the things that you cannot already do. For example, if you have to play 2 songs for an event and you’re really good at one, and you stink at the other song — you should spend rehearsal time working on the song that you stink at, and not spend time on the song that you already can play. This seems self-explanatory, right? Many musicians have problems with this because working on songs that don’t sound good yet isn’t always fun. It takes time for a musician to find the fun in the process and not just in the final product.
As I now work with many other musicians, I’m often surprised at how many of them haven’t learned how to practice. They think that “practice” means playing all the fun stuff that we are already really good at. What does that accomplish? Nothing. It accomplishes absolutely nothing. It only results in a short-lasted fun time and a much longer rehearsal.
Now let’s pull that concept out of the musical context and apply it to other areas of our lives. What’s you “music”; the thing you’re trying to get better at? Are you trying to get “better” at your relationship with God? …at your job? …at your relationships? All these things can be practiced. Are you practicing effectively?
Hmm….I design websites, and constantly find myself needing to write my own pieces of code to make new and innovative things that clients want work. I used to not enjoy figuring out how to these new things, but as I did it, I started to see the amazing results that learning new things and combining them with old, or sometimes letting go of the old for a newer better way, did.
About a year ago, I started trying this out in my relationship with God, and the results have been amazing. I still have a long way to go, and I constantly find myself slipping and going back, but slowly, very, very, very, very, very, very slowly, and with lots of mistakes, I’m learning to practice my relationship with God, and through Him my relationships with others.
Good point, Adam!
Yep. That’s one of the great secrets of life, and here you go telling everybody.
Pretty soon everyone’s going to know. Then it won’t be a secret.
Bummer.
The ironic part is that learning to practice, work, etc. is actually a lot of fun once you get started. Getting started, though, pretty much blows.
Other people who tried to tell the secret:
William James (also with some boring, tedious parts)
Some Czech researcher whose name has too many consonants for me to remember but who wrote a book called “Flow” (highly recommended.)
Eric Fromm (a sixties era psychologist/philosopher–back when the two were pretty much the same thing) whose only idea I’ve ever remembered is paraphrased thus: Living is an art. Everyone understands that to become good at piano, painting or any art you have to work and work for years. But most people think that by virtue of having been born they should know how to live. But life is infinitely more complex than any other art.
I usually sum up the entire thought: “Life is a skill,” and add, “My favorite word is ‘yet;'” As in: I can’t, “yet,” I don’t know how, “yet,” I’m no good, “yet,” etc. “yet.”
Now, I’m thinking of complaining that this blog has no spell checker. But I’m sure you’d only say that spelling well takes practice.
Thing is, I only have fun spelling the words I already no.