A coworker recently told me about their son’s piano lessons. I said that I took lessons as a kid but quit after a few years. My brother did too. We just both hated to practice.
As I drove home that day, I started thinking about other things I’ve done in my life, and I realized that piano wasn’t an outlier. I really do not like doing things that involve dedicated practice.
Looking back, I’m glad that practice for tween house league soccer was like 30 minutes before a game and practice for university quidditch was just dumb activities with fun people. Because if I had to dedicate time to run drills and gain experience on my own, I would not have done it.
The thought of setting aside time to focus on doing something over and over again for the sake of bettering myself just sounds awful to me. If I can’t draw something, then I just can’t draw it. I have no desire to practice. I’m okay with not being able to do things. I’m okay with not learning a new language because that involves practice and dedication, and daily Duolingo streaks are just not for me.
That’s not to say that I need to be immediately good at things from the start or else I quit. Of course that’s not how it works. But I much rather prefer the ‘practice’ and improvement time to be worked into doing for the sake of doing, rather than preparing to do. Does that make sense? I get better at curling by actually playing curling games, rather than throwing rocks on my own so I can excel in a hypothetical future game. My goal is to play the games and have fun. If I can be a decent player too, great. But I don’t need to be the best, and I won’t put in the time to be the best. The effort it’d take to be the best won’t be enjoyable for me.
Same with writing. My writing has drastically improved over the years, but I don’t practice by writing things for myself over and over until it’s good enough for the real thing. I practice by actually writing and blogging and doing the thing I want to do for real, and over time and with feedback and learning, it improves.
I’m also not saying that practice is a bad thing overall. There is absolutely value in taking the time to master something. Especially for kids. Practice reading. Practice telling time. Practice math equations. But once I personally got some autonomy in my life as far as what I chose to learn and how I choose to spend my time, it’s clear that I chose things that didn’t require me to practice too much.
Am I lazy? Maybe. Probably. But I’m also not sorry. “Practice makes perfect”, but I don’t want to be perfect. I’m content being mediocre if that’s what it means, and I’m content doing things without having hours of dedicated practice time behind it. I’ll still practice when I need to learn something, but I don’t go out of my way too much to incorporate that into my life.
Before I started my new job, I did some practice drives on the highway, since I didn’t have a lot of experience on the road. I’m glad I did it, but I did not have a good time doing it, and I did do as few as I could while still ensuring I felt comfortable enough to do the drive when the time came.
To all the people who willingly practice an instrument or talent or art or baking or whatever else, good for you. I hope you find satisfaction in your efforts and success in your results.
Do you practice anything? Do you enjoy the practice process?
Follow me: Twitter / Facebook / Instagram / Bloglovin’
Coolbeans4 