“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!
Lance — I liked what you said about practicing to get better at what “burns inside of us.” If you don’t really want to learn something, you probably won’t stick with it for very long.
Good point Amanda.
This post reminds me of those days in school orchestra. We practiced some of those music pieces until every movement became automatic.
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