Practice Makes Progress
Complete this sentence: Progress makes…
If you automatically filled in the word “perfect”, well, you’re certainly not alone, but you’ve been fed a lie. Perfect is an impossible goal.
Does that mean you shouldn’t practice? That practice makes no difference? That it’s pointless? Absolutely not.
So if the goal isn’t perfection, then what it is? What’s the point?
- Practice makes progress
- Practice makes things easier
- Practice gets your to your goals faster
- Practice promotes fluency
And you know what? Practice is hard. Practice is slow. Practice can be monotonous.
But practice is also the fastest, surest route to progress.
- Every single time you practice, you get better.
- Every single time you practice, you strengthen the new neural pathways you’re trying to build.
- Every single time you practice, you’re one step closer to your goal.
There’s no easy button, much as we all wish there were. But there is a simple path to get where you want to go. And it’s practice.
If you throw in towel when it’s hard, or when you make a mistake, or make the wrong decision, you’ll stagnate. If you get up, dust yourself off, and start anew you’ll make progress.
Practice is how you build habits.
When my youngest kid was around 2, I decided that I needed to start exercising (for the first time in my adult life). And because I’m frugal, and because I care deeply about time, I chose to start running. Running is a free activity that I can do right outside my house, on the street or in the park.
And the first time I went running, I barely made it a mile. And weirdly, the inside of my ears were throbbing. It was hard. I didn’t like it.
But I kept doing it. And each time I went for a run, it was a little bit easier, and I could run a little bit farther without feeling like I was gonna keel over. 9 years later, I run several times a week. I can easily run 5 miles without stopping (albeit slowly; my kids will never forget to point that out). But the point is, running is a skill. A skill I didn’t have before I started practicing. A skill I now possess. A skill that I get better at with every run.
Time management is like this too. It’s a set of skills you can practice. A set of skills that becomes easier the more you practice.
If you don’t yet have the skills you need to use your time in a way that feels good to you, every day, there’s no time like today to get started. Every time you practice, every time you recommit, you get better, things get easier, and soon enough you can barely remember what it felt like when you didn’t possess those skills.
Sometimes the barrier to getting started is simply that we don’t know where to turn. But that doesn’t have to be you, because I can teach you those skills. I can support you in your practice, so that you, too, can learn to use your time in service of your goals and values and feel good at the end of every day about how you spent your time.
These skills are well within your reach; you just have to take the first step to reach out and grab them.
You can enroll, right now, in the Time Well Spent program.
Enrollment closes on 9/2.
Don’t miss your chance to learn the skills to help you live a low-stress, high productivity life. The path is right in front of you. Take the first step.
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Originally published at https://www.alexishaselberger.com on August 29, 2022.
