My youngest daughter sat at the piano. For an hour. Plus.
She played. I listened. She messed up. She played some more.
Then she asked for some help. Something didn’t sound right and she knew it.
Her right hand was off by just one key. One key.
My husband shoots arrows. Spends hours at the archery range.
Working on his posture and technique. Practicing every week.
Then he took our daughter, Kaylin, to an archery lesson.
Jim said one thing. One thing that Craig didn’t know.
He tried what he’d just learned. With ease like never before, he shot a bullseye.
Most of us believe that, “Practice makes perfect.” But this is false.
Think back to my daughter at the piano.
Practicing with her hand on the wrong keys only created repetition of the wrong notes.
It created PERMANENCE. Not perfection.
It created muscle memory. A record. A habit.
REPETITION is a powerful learning tool.
But repeating something that IS NOT serving us, that isn’t right, doesn’t create perfection.
It simply creates permanence.
This is why WHAT YOU PRACTICE MATTERS.
For my husband, one simple tip changed the way he pulled the bow back.
It changed everything and made all of his hours of practice irrelevant.
What he’d practiced hadn’t created perfection, but it had created permanence.
He had to re-learn how to pull the bow back with this new knowledge.
Our teens apply the principle, “Practice makes perfect”, at school. They ignorantly believe that simply repeating something will result in perfection of a skill, of increased knowledge, or of improved performance. We often say to our teens, “Just keep practicing. You’ll get it.” But how many teens actually check-in with themselves to see if what they’re practicing is serving them? If they’re doing it properly? If they’re repeating it in a way that will get them the results they’re wanting?
Likely, not many.
If your teen keeps writing the formula for photosynthesis incorrectly, it doesn’t matter how many times they write it. It will always be wrong and they’ll miss it on their test.
PRACTICE MAKES PERMANENT, my friends. So if you’re going to encourage your teen to practice, START FIRST by teaching them the power of practice. Then they can harness that power into creating PERMANENT skills that will help them achieve their dreams!
