Making Practice a Success

As we explored on Monday, practicing can be used by everyone to obtain skills that ultimately become second nature. Today, I'll draw from my experience practicing piano to give you some tips to help your own practice lead to success.

Goal setting is crucial! If the destination is not clearly defined, we'll never know that we've reached it. Avoid being too general though. If I am learning a new piece at the piano, it's not enough to say I want to learn to play the song; instead, I have to specify that I want to play the piece accurately with a tempo of no less than 172 beats per minute. If I don't play the notes accurately, I am not playing the song. At the same time, I can't play the song at whatever speed I choose. There needs to be a standard of expectation.

Similarly, I can't simply state that I want to be more patient without providing a measurement that qualifies as reaching my goal. Perhaps I am going to exhibit patience by not tapping my fingers on my desk in irritation for 5 consecutive days. The point is that you must identify what you are trying to modify or develop through your practicing.

Include short term goals along the way. Once you identify your ultimate goal, it is helpful to break it up into smaller steps. In the example of learning a new piece of music, one goal may be to correctly play all of the notes at a slow steady tempo. Then I may begin to increase the metronome speed gradually. These short term goals allow me to see progress in my journey without the frustration that I may never achieve the ultimate goal. We all need small victories to celebrate along the way to give us the encouragement to persevere.

Map your journey's path. In order to know where we are and where we're going, sometimes it is important to take note of where we've been. This is where a practice log can be helpful. A practice log is simply a diary devoted to your pursuit of your goal. If you are training for a 5K, it may simply be a record of the date, distance, and time for your run. There is obvious value in this method to help you see your progress, but I strongly encourage you to include brief notes about the run as well.

Notes in your practice log give signs of improvement when numbers seem to be stagnant. If you're running at approximately the same speed for several weeks, it might become discouraging. Notes may tell that you were feeling under the weather or that the conditions were challenging. Not only do notes present explanations, often they provide insight into new short term goals that need to be achieved on the way to your ultimate goal. When patterns begin to reveal themselves in the log, we may realize there is an obstacle inhibiting our progress that must be addressed.

You will make mistakes! Accept it from the beginning. There will be days you don't practice. Other days will see an unintentional error in your efforts to reach the goal. Don't get frustrated. Making mistakes is an important part of the learning process. The trick is making sure that errors don't go undiagnosed, which brings us to our final point of the day.

Don't underestimate the importance of evaluation. Whatever you are attempting to add to your skill set, you simply must have self-evaluation as well as the evaluation of a trusted person who has more skill in the discipline than you do. Assume that I am learning to make chocolate pie. While I can identify errors in measurements, some of the subtleties of technique also need to be addressed. I can't determine if I'm doing things correctly because I DON'T KNOW HOW TO DO THEM AT ALL! I have to allow someone with authority to critique my efforts.

Evaluation is uncomfortable. We present our best effort and listen to an explanation of what we did wrong. We have to publicly admit that we are fallible and ignorant of the topic at hand. Because this is such an awkward situation for many adults, it is crucial that you feel empowered to select the mentor/teacher who is the best fit for you. Make sure to find a trusted individual who feels like a friend. The best mentor will easily identify your mistake and then patiently explain (and hopefully demonstrate) how to correct the problem. Ask for suggestions of things to do to overcome the obstacle and ask if you can check back in with them in a few weeks.

On Friday, I'll look at maintaining your skills once you have achieved them as we learn together how important it is to continue practicing what you have already learned.