photo credit: Darhawk

“It’s not nec­es­sar­ily the amount of time you spend at prac­tice that counts; it’s what you put into the prac­tice.” — Eric Lindros

With three kids in many dif­fer­ent sports and music pro­grams, it seems there is always a prac­tice of some sort to go to. Right now it’s base­ball, soft­ball, and piano.

This got me think­ing about the value of prac­tice — on sev­eral dif­fer­ent angles.

Prac­tice is for What?

What things do we (as adults) prac­tice? What are we work­ing at get­ting bet­ter at? And this isn’t just doing our job we’re paid to do. Usu­ally this is the “game” sit­u­a­tion. How are we prac­tic­ing, when it doesn’t count? We need to spend time read­ing, tak­ing classes, learn­ing new things. Think about when you’ve tried some­thing new — you’re prob­a­bly excited, maybe tak­ing a class, or learn­ing how to do “it” on the side. You want to be good when it counts. But what hap­pens after we become “good”? Does prac­tice take a back seat? I think the answer is yes, often in can. But we must not become com­pla­cent in our prac­tic­ing of the skills we have. The bet­ter we become at using these skills, the more we’ll be able to use these skills for good.

Do You Just Show Up?

So, you’re prac­tic­ing? But is it pro­duc­tive prac­tice? To get the most out of our prac­tice, we need to make it qual­ity time spent. This means we are fully engaged dur­ing our train­ing time. Maybe we set aside a cer­tain time of day (i.e. tak­ing a class at the local com­mu­nity col­lege). Or maybe we read a book, hav­ing a high­lighter and note­book along. Or maybe we work on some­thing with a group of peo­ple, with every­one con­tribut­ing value to the group. The key here is that we’re not just at prac­tice for the sake of prac­tice. We’re there to get bet­ter at what­ever it is that burns inside of us.

Make It Fun

If you’re not enjoy­ing prac­tice, then maybe you’re not enjoy­ing the “game” either. Enjoy what you do, and prac­tice will be as fun as the real thing. If it’s fun, you’re more likely to stick with it.

Apply What You’ve Learned

What good is prac­tice if you go out after­ward and just keep doing what you’ve always done? The key to prac­tice is that you learn some­thing and apply it. This is why we prac­tice. We are work­ing at get­ting bet­ter at what we do (or want to do).

This all reminds me of a cou­ple of col­lege courses I’ve had (sev­eral years ago!). If you think of the col­lege course as the prac­tice, then the real thing would be either the class tests, or apply­ing what you’ve learned in real life sit­u­a­tions. Some of these classes, I know I didn’t apply what I had learned, and the price I paid was poor grades on tests. At the time, I was happy to have passed. But in real­ity, what did I learn? Not a lot, and espe­cially not a lot that would stay with me once I left that class. So, in that case, I had just showed up, had lit­tle fun, and couldn’t apply at all what I had learned. My prac­tice in these classes, was of lit­tle prac­ti­cal use for me.

How many times in our life does this hap­pen?  Have you ever taken a course from a school online and had the same expe­ri­ence?  The key is to min­i­mize (or elim­i­nate) these.  This is done by hav­ing fun at what we’re doing and learn­ing. In turn, this leads to us want­ing to learn more, and grow and improve. And that’s what prac­tice is all about!

photo credit: ryan loucks photography

“The way a team plays as a whole deter­mines its suc­cess. You may have the great­est bunch of indi­vid­ual stars in the world, but if they don’t play together, the club won’t be worth a dime. ” ~ Babe Ruth

It’s youth base­ball sea­son here right now. Last night brought two games at our house­hold — for my older son (13) and younger son (9). On the one hand, both games ended in defeat. On the other hand, both boys each had what I felt was their best per­sonal per­for­mance of the year. I came home excited by their per­for­mances, telling them it doesn’t mat­ter if you win or lose. But, was that the right approach?

As a par­ent, I was most pleased that my chil­dren per­formed well for the team. And, I believe both boys felt they had per­formed well. But their view was more focused on the team. They were more upset about los­ing the game than on have a great per­sonal game.

Tak­ing this all into per­spec­tive, the kids had this one right. It is bet­ter to share in the vic­tory of a team over the indi­vid­ual effort of one. That is not to say the indi­vual effort is not to be praised. The key, though, is to meld together indi­vid­ual per­for­mance for the bet­ter­ment of the team.

This, of course, applies to all team sports. But in can apply in other areas as well. Think work teams, or teams of vol­un­teers, or fam­ily “teams”. When we can get every­one on the team (no mat­ter what kind of team we have) work­ing together toward a com­mon goal, with every­one putting forth their best effort, is when we have the great­est oppor­tu­nity to have a great team effort. Maybe this results in a win (lit­tle league base­ball), or maybe it results in a suc­cess­ful soft­ware imple­men­ta­tion (work project), or maybe it results in a suc­cess­ful clean-up of a local park (vol­un­teer project), or maybe it results in a great fam­ily vaca­tion (fam­ily). In the end, how the team per­forms trumps indi­vid­ual per­for­mance. Invid­ual per­for­mance plays a fac­tor in the team per­for­mance, but only if it is in align­ment with the team.

So, in the activ­i­ties that mat­ter in our life, it is impor­tant that we strive to give our per­sonal best. At that same time, how­ever, it is equally impor­tant that our per­sonal achieve­ments are in align­ment with the over­all achieve­ment of our team. It is then that we will expe­ri­ence the true suc­cess of these teams!

photo credit: Pho­toGra­ham

“If we are fac­ing in the right direc­tion, all we have to do is keep on walk­ing.” — Ancient Bud­dhist proverb

Two days ago I was rid­ing my bike on the bike path near our house. The bike path trav­els through a mostly rural and wooded area. As I was rid­ing, I saw a turkey stand­ing on the path ahead of me. The turkey was on the oppo­site side of the path, and I assumed he would run into the field. Well, he must not have saw me until I was almost right beside him. And, instead of run­ning into the field near­est him (and away from me), he chose to run back across the path right in front of me. This was the side from which he had approached the path just ear­lier. I just missed hit­ting him by less than a foot!

So, why do I bring this up? It got me think­ing … how many times do we con­tinue to go down the path (or road) we know because that’s what we’re “com­fort­able” with? And how many times could we try new roads in our life, and see where they take us? It’s easy to get caught up in doing what we’ve always done. There is a com­fort level in know­ing what to expect. But is that road tak­ing you in the direc­tion you want your life to go in?

It’s impor­tant that we take time to eval­u­ate where we are going in life, and why we’re doing what we do. Spend­ing the time to deter­mine what we want and desire in life will lead to us hav­ing the life we desire. Sure, there will be times when we make mis­takes, or when we go down a road that is really a dead end. Maybe (likely) we’ll decide later in our life that some of the roads we were going down no longer are direc­tions we want to go. But in going down these new roads as we lead our life, we get to know our­selves better.

So, explore those new roads out there. You’ll find new things, and learn more about your­self in the process!