Practice, practice, practice

With winter upon us, people getting ready to receive EoY feedback and new resolutions in the works, it is time for each of us to decide how we want to change, improve and/or start afresh.

As you think about the changes, improvements or just fresh ‘restarts’ you want to make, do not forget the value in practice, practice, practice. We did it as kids growing up, learning to play a sport or a musical instrument and we tell this to our own children, but why do we not think about this and do it as adults? In my mind, I see the task of working on developing a new hard or soft skill as training a voluntary muscle into an involuntary muscle. For example, if I need to lift a heavy object, I would need to think, train and tell my brain and muscle what to do to lift this heavy object. This is all voluntary because I may need to develop the strength and skill to lift the heavy object or simply, I could also get someone else to do this for me. An involuntary muscle, like the heart and lungs, is a muscle I do not even think about, as it is natural. Another way to look it at this is that you want your new skills, your improved skill to be part of your DNA. But to get there, you need to practice, practice and practice until you are not thinking of it. The more you practice, the more it gets to be you, the less you need to think about it and you become that skill or ability you want to be.

I think we as adults are afraid of this because we are afraid to fail in front of our peers, our seniors, our co-workers and the people that work for us. We are afraid if others know what our failures are. But what if we had a culture of allowing us to fail safely and speaking openly on what we look to improve on.

If you think that would be tough, imagine if you are Gary Sanchez (NY Yankees starting catcher) waking up on Sunday and seeing this as the headline on the front page of the NY Times sports section:

Gary Sanchez Is One of Baseball’s Best Catchers, but there’s a Catch – Yankees catcher Gary Sanchez, among the best at his position, has been working on his one weakness: catching the ball.

 #thoughtfortheweek