Practise makes progress makes perfectly fine
No such thing as perfect.
🍲Have you ever asked someone for a recipe?
But then instead of cooking instructions clearly telling you exactly how much of what and in what order with which actions, you get something that could just as well have been the following:
Twirl three times under a full moon. Add a little bit of salt, if needed.
Of course, one would feel more than a bit disgruntled after receiving such instructions, who wouldn’t? And one may even feel entirely justified in starting a vicious rumour about THIS PERSON never being willing to share their recipes!
But.
[And now I’m going to assume that you yourself have a favourite dish that you’ve been making ever since you were a teenager.
For me, that dish is macaroni with a cheese sauce.
💥Please note, I’m NOT referring to mac and cheese where you mix macaroni with a cheese sauce and then kill it dead with another round of cooking in the oven. No!]
🍲Have YOU ever been asked for a recipe?
And then found that you no longer had the original recipe? And that you’ve been doing it so often that you’re now able to add whatever you have in the house and make it work simply by how
🥄it feels when you stir
👅it tastes when you dip a finger in it
👃it smells when it’s ready
That’s what practise (the verb) does over time – in my case, almost five decades of macaroni and cheese!
🤔Just imagine what you could do if you
deliberately practised to develop a specific skill set
were open to receiving feedback
actively practised to build on your strengths and fix your weaknesses!
Chase Jarvis calls practice (the noun) the seventh lever to a successful creative life in Never play it safe.
He says there’s a pattern in all types of successful practice (from basketball players to classical musicians to artists):
Daily ruthless focus on the basics of the craft with shocking precision and attention to details. [The fundamentals]
Falling in love with the process of practising. Through raw passion for the craft, you’re able and excited to work long hours to build experience, skills, discipline and mindset. [The process]
Aligning how and what you practise with what you think and believe about yourself. [Your identity]
Here is my visual summary:
What will you be practising this week?
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