Well, I don’t have too many answers on how to get better or perform at very high levels. But I think it’s an important topic to all of us who want to improve ourselves and have better quality outcomes.
Before I get into the subject of practice I must mention that at one stage I got sick and tired of self improvement. There are millions of pages written on self-improvement, hundreds of thousands of coaches another experts telling you what to do and your own inner critic saying you’ve got to be better. This is why self insight and perspective are so important.?
I’ll share what I’ve learned and observed about practice. ?One of the things to get good at anything that you want to do is to do it regularly. You know the old saying, if you don’t use it, you lose it. This applies to anything. I’m not even going to go into examples because it’s general for any type of activity or artistic endeavor.
The other thing that I know is that when you reach a certain level of difficulty, you need to break through. However, it is hard to break through. You really need to want to do it. You’ll also discover that breaking through will present obstacles.
All I can say is patience and perseverance are things that get me through.
I’ve also found that I stay on one level for a long time, much longer than I would anticipate. I’m thinking at the moment of something that I did for a year and only after a year did I get marginally better at doing what I was doing.
Another thing: you can read as much as you want or watch videos on TikTok. But you need to find out what works for you. I’ll give you an example. If you are bad at something, but it’s important to what you need to do, then you need to focus on that area and practice it. Now, others will say, oh, you could get someone else to do that for you, or you could take shortcuts or rather concentrate on your strengths. That might be advice for some things in life, but for excellence in many things, you need to master the areas where you are weak.
I’ll keep this short and rather just leave you with this thought: think back to all your experiences in learning something new and maintaining the skill. You need energy to get involved in whatever you want to do. You need to observe what you are doing and think of ways to improve. And to get better at anything, you need to practice more.
Here are some links courtesy of KOMO if you have the time to follow up and dig a bit more deeply:
Steps & Action Items
1
Establish a feedback system
1
2
Focus on specific aspects
1
3
Set clear goals
12
4
Break down your craft
1
5
Experiment
13
6
Consistency
3
7
Join study/practice groups
5
8
Enjoy your practice
6
