Practice makes perfect?

Does practice make perfect? Well, not exactly. Not the way you tend to think of it.

Little factoid about me: I’ve played the piano my entire life. In high school I taught myself to play the organ. It was such a great love of mine that I truly excelled. I was giving recitals and concert tours after only 2 months.

I was fortunate to get a scholarship and majored in Organ Performance and Pedagogy at university. Random, right? It was here I learned a very important lesson. Everyone had always said, “Practice makes perfect, practice makes perfect!” And, I thought that was true. I figured more practice would make me a better performer. Well it didn’t. After practicing up to 16 hours a day, I wasn’t getting better. Needless to say my life was completely changed when I learned the truth:

“Perfect practice makes perfect.”

You see, practice only makes you better at whatever you’re practicing. If you practice mistakes, those mistakes become more ingrained in your mind and body. I would like to apply this lesson to reactions.

I’m guessing you’re reading this blog because you are interested in living your life by design. You have a feeling inside of who you feel you are deep down. You have dreams you would like to achieve and create. You have an inkling you might not be living your most authentic life or reaching your full potential. That’s ok! You’ve already got a great start!

The idea is to start with the vision of your perfect life. Now, chances are it’s your reactions and habits that keep you from “getting there”. The nasty habit you have is: acting upon your reactions! If someone steps on your foot, you get angry and want to punch them in the face. Now, you probably won’t actually punch them. In this society, it’s more likely you’ll give them an passive-aggressive scowl that you hope will drive daggers into their heart.

Try this on for size:
What if, instead of scowling, you tried this. Hold in your mind the vision of who you are, deep down. Who is this person living your dream. Chances are it’s you, but confident, fulfilled, joyful, flowing with life, balanced, grounded, abundant. Would this “You” hold on to the reaction of anger? Would “You” scowl and hope the person got embarrassed? NO!!

It can take untold amounts of effort to maintain this level of focus every moment of the day, so let’s start with an exercise:

This week’s challenge:

• Set aside 15 minutes. (What are you doing right now?)
• Get out a pen and paper.
• Write down three reactions you feel detract you from living more fully. (Get annoyed at having to take the dog out? Do chores begrudgingly? Come up with a new reason every day not to ask for a raise? Snap at people for no apparent reason? Bully your kids? Wall-flower at social functions?)
• Write down why you think you do these things. (OK, maybe it’ll take more than 15 minutes)
• Write down how you would act (not react) in these situations AS THE PERSON YOU FEEL YOU ARE DEEP DOWN
• Now, do it!

Perhaps this mantra will help:

“I live by design… not by my reactions.”

Peace to you in your journey, and in all your efforts to live joyfully.

* For those of you wondering about my spelling of ‘practice’, I just prefer the British spelling. I also write ‘grey’, not ‘gray’. Thanks

Tags: authentic living, freedom of choice, reactions,
Categories: Lessons Learned

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