I thought was great article and a lot of great content. Something everyone should read. I like to think of it as Progress, not perfection. (
Practice, Not perfection
In a world that conditions us to obsess about outcomes
while encouraging us to multitask rather than focus on a single goal, it’s easy
to undervalue the importance of practice.
Practice is the key to true inner peace and contentment. By
concentrating on specific tasks rather than spending our energy worrying about
future outcomes or harping on our past “mistakes,” we’re able to be more
focused and more present.
In The Practicing Mind, pianist Thomas
Sterner brilliantly explains how cultivating
discipline and focus through practice helps us create a friction less path to
achieving our goals — and experience the joy that comes as a result.
Let’s jump in and explore what it means to practice and how we
can shift our perspective to view practice, not perfection, as the ultimate
goal.
FROM LEARNING TO PRACTICING
One way to move into focusing on the process rather than the
result is to understand the difference between “practice” and “learning.”
“The word ‘practice’ implies the presence
of awareness and will,” Sterner explains. “The
word ‘learning’ does not. When we practice something, we are involved in the
deliberate repetition of a process with the intention of reaching a specific
goal. The words ‘deliberate’ and ‘intention’ are key here because they
define the difference between actively practicing something and passively
learning it.”
Learning is wonderful, but practice is a bit different. Practice
involves setting an intention and being deliberate. It is the process of
picking a goal and choosing to continually apply steady effort to reach it.
FOCUS ON THE WORK
Despite his steady effort to become an accomplished musician,
Sterner notes that it was playing golf that really helped him understand the
dynamics of practice.
While working on his swing, he began to notice that an attachment to results (which we can’t control) rather than to the
process (which we can control) is what causes us to
feel perpetually discontented.
This is really the essence of the whole book:
“When yoy let go of your attachment to the object you desire and
make your desire the experience of staying focused on working toward that
object, you fulfill that desire in every minute that you remain patient with
your circumstances. There is no reason not
to be patient. There is no effort, no
‘trying to be patient’ here. Patience is just a natural outgrowth of your
shifted perspective.
“This shift in perspective is very small and subtle on the
one hand, but it has enormous freeing power. No task seems too large to
undertake. Your confidence goes way up, as does your patience with
yourself. You are always achieving your goal, and there are no mistakes or time
limits to create stress.”
In other words, when we focus our attention only on a desired outcome, we’ll
experience stress, anxiety, lack of presence, and diminished performance.
But when our primary desire is to stay focused on the process of
working toward a goal, we’ll experience presence, engagement, and increased
performance. This makes it much
more likely we will achieve the outcome we desire with “frictionless ease.”
It’s a subtle, but vital, shift to use our goals as rudders —
occasionally checking in to make sure we’re on course — and focus our energy on the
here and now of our practicing minds rather than on our wandering minds that
are always looking ahead.
PRACTICE MINDFULLY
In order to enhance our ability to home in on the benefits of
practice, we need to exercise our minds.
Like many great teachers, Sterner believes that meditation is
one of the most effective ways to shift our attention, free us from the
confines of our ego and its attachments, and fine-tune our presence.
“Though there are certainly a number of ways to accomplish
[freeing ourselves from the confines of ego], the most effective method for
spontaneously and effortlessly creating this alignment is meditation,” he
writes.
But Sterner also provides another way to rock it, explaining
that we can create a practicing mind
by calling in the “DOC” — do, observe, and correct.
Here’s how he explains the technique:
“If, for example, you feel you tend to worry too much, then try
to apply DOC to your actions. When you notice yourself fretting over something,
you have accomplished the do portion.
Now observe the behavior that you want to change. In
your observation of yourself worrying, you separate yourself from the act
of worrying.
“Now realize that the emotions you are experiencing have no
effect on the problem over which you’re fretting. Release yourself from the
emotions as best as you can — that is the correction portion.”
When you’re feeling off your game, the first step is to do
something. It can be an action as simple as noticing a behavior.
Once you’ve parsed the problem, observe it like a good
instructor — objectively and without judgment or emotion. Check in and ask
yourself if the behavior is working well or if you need to adjust some things
to get back on track.
Finally, correct what’s not working. Again, do this without
emotion — other than perhaps some enthusiasm for realizing you’re cultivating
the mojo of a practicing mind!
Don’t postpone feeling joy until you’ve reached your goals or
fulfilled your dream. Learn to enjoy the process and you’ll open yourself up to
the rewards available every step along the way.
