We had a friend over for dinner and he was asking my son if he liked playing the piano. My son said, “No, not really.” But I pushed him and asked, “You didn’t like being able to play the Star Wars theme song for your friends?” He replied, “Well, that was cool, but I don’t like practicing.”
Which, of course, is where I went into full mom-splain mode.
The gist? No one likes to not be good at something. It’s hard to practice something and not be great right away. But practice & consistency is what (slowly & over time) will allow you to see that the piano recital at Carnegie Hall is 0.0001% about that day.
It’s about all of the days and years of practice and consistency that went into that performance. It’s about the small wins along the way. It’s about consistently & oftentimes imperceptibly getting better & better every day.
Which is why having a *goal* of “losing x weight” or even “lifting x weight” is great… but what if that goal is really far away? And you “don’t like” to exercise?
What if your goal was just to practice? Don’t call it a workout.
Say instead, that you’re going to the gym to practice being strong.
Say you’re going for a walk to practice being someone who doesn’t miss a day of purposeful movement.
Having a goal of playing piano at Carnegie Hall is great, but you’ll never get there if you don’t have a consistent practice.
And on a side note, while you’re practicing, your goal may shift from playing classical music to being in a rock band. That’s cool too! Your practice is never wasted.
Find time in your day, every day, to practice this thing you want to be good at. Some days it may be 5 minutes, other days it could be 45 or 90!
Start. & then practice. Keep practicing. Try to find things you enjoy about the practice. The other stuff will come.
Photo is of my son in his first (& virtual) piano recital.
