How far can you go in a chosen area if you commit to diligent, intentional, consistent practice?
History is filled with examples, from all areas of life, where people with average talent have achieved a high level of proficiency, some even attaining mastery, simply because they practiced, practiced, practiced . . . and practiced some more.
The fact of the matter is that practice matters more than talent. Those with less talent and a commitment to steady practice go much further than those with a ton of natural talent, but a poor work ethic.
In my e-book “7 Solutions” (sign up for free in the sidebar), I wrote about the high school kid who regularly traded in his sleep for walking up and down the hallways of his house, in the wee hours before before sunrise, playing riff after riff after riff on his electric guitar (unplugged, of course!). Practicing the same riffs hundreds of times, thousands of times.
That’s how you get good at something.
In fact, that’s the ONLY way you get good at something.
Not very fancy or sexy, is it?
It’s called hard work. CONSISTENT hard work.
I challenge you to an experiment. Pick an area that you’d like to improve, in your personal or professional life, and commit to spending the next 30 days putting in some consistent practice.
You get to decide how long your practice sessions are, but I’m challenging you to do SOMETHING everyday. Ok, ok, take the weekends off. You can still make very good progress by practicing 5 days/week.
In fact, it’s better to practice a little bit every day than to have only one or two longer practice sessions in the week.
When I was wanting to improve some karate techniques, I would look for small five minute chunks of time, and run through certain identified techniques in a mini-practice session.
Don’t despise small practice sessions like this. A lot can be accomplished with enough of these five minute sessions strung together.
Of course, it’s better to have some longer practice sessions too. My point is really aimed at the person who says, “But I don’t have any time”. Hey buddy, you have 5 minutes–do something, PRACTICE!
One last thing–speaking of karate, my karate teacher often said, “practice doesn’t make perfect, practice makes permanent”.
If you’re going to take up my challenge and diligently engage in some consistent practice to improve something, then make sure you’re performing your chosen task correctly!
If you continue to practice something the wrong way, you’ll only solidify poor technique and make it more difficult to break bad habits later, when someone comes along and shows you the RIGHT way to do it.
Do you need feedback from someone who’s already mastering what you’re trying to improve? Hey, we all do from time to time.
Regardless, get out there, and practice!
Not sure what area to work on? Here’s some suggestions:
>fitness
>weight loss
>communication–listening, expressing yourself assertively, empathy, eliminating “verbal tics”, etc.
>good manners and etiquette
>deep breathing and releasing your tension
>daily planning and productivity
>a sport you enjoy, or a part of that sport (e.g., putting in golf)
>spending time of focused engagement with your family
>picking some part of your job and improving it
You get the idea. Pick something meaningful to you, practice consistently for a month, everyday (or nearly) and see what kind of progress you make.
You’ll be encouraged by your progress . . . maybe even blown away.
Let me know what happens.