Hello!
Autumn is started, my favorite season.
This edition was inspired by a question that people ask me rather often.
it’s not mere churning out, it’s about creating an opportunity to repeat over and over some processes and gestures and skills that are the components of a practice.
Ok, repetition and practice or, vice versa. They look like synonyms but, in fact, they are not. Even if one involves the other, there is a big difference between two.
Practice is the mindful attempt to achieve Quality.
Repetition is what makes the Practice effective through Quantity.
The only way to learn something is by doing it. Sometimes is a “one and done” experience, like “Yeah, I can do it!”.
Other times, there is the famous learning curve that, at least for me, it’s more a powerful roller coaster of emotions.
I don’t know if this apply to you and would be nice if you can let me know in the comments.
I believe that the key element of a good practice is repetition.
Repetition makes us give to ourselves the time and space to train our whole and consistently strengthens our micro abilities.
What happens when we constantly practice, when we constantly repeat our commitment to improve?
I like to believe that, at some point, we reach a kind of “illumination”, we become Masters.
Let me close with one of my “famous quotes” :-D
Practice makes better, perfection is in DNA
I coined this in 2015, when I met
in person for the first time in Prague.I had the opportunity to see with my eyes Mike sketchnoting and I noticed that if I draw a line, you see a line, if Mike draw a line, you see a sketchnote. I can’t explain this feeling.
What I’m saying is that, in life, there are certain things that are not for me, no matter how much practice I put into it.
I can became “good-enough-for-me” but no more eg. dancing .
And that is normal and it’s good as long as I understand and accept my limits, my “being human”. Of course I can dance and sure I can say loudly and without shame that
I suck at dancing!
And because of that I can really enjoy an occasional dance and save myself the struggle of “trying hard” and the time I’d spend to get better.
It is so ok to suck at something, it sets you free.
Next time you start practicing anything, just make sure that you are going to love what you are doing, maybe not immediately, maybe it’ll take a good deal of time but, at the end, you need to accept the outcome and love it.
“No pain, no gain”, they say. “If you don’t see gain, just stop the pain”, I say.
I think it’s all for now.
A few links you may find interesting
Quantity leads to quality (the origin of a parable): an excellent post by
just about what we are talking about here.Creativity is Productivity: another interesting post. Scott Young ( author of
newsletter) start by elaborating about why Scientists receive fewer citations as they get older, to arrive at the final section “To Produce Better Work, Increase Your Output”.The problem with the 10,000-hour rule...: I love this one. Dr. Maria Panagiotidi (author of
here) debunks the 10k hours rule.Thank you so much!
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Ciao!
Mauro