This blog will be about a lot of things, but they'll all probably be in the ballpark of how we learn, adapt, behave, and change. I'm not trained or certified in any of the things I talk about, and all of these words are my own personal reflections to experiences and information I have read or heard. None of this is advice to be taken. Question what I say.
Habits are our starting point. Our habits determine our lives. The biggest factor in long-term success is consistency of effort. How do you achieve a large, long-term goal? Spend a lot of time working on it. And by 'a lot of time', I don't mean 8 hours a day for a month. I mean years worth. You become a great piano player by practicing consistently for years. So while the goal is to become a great piano player, what we should be focusing on is how to ensure we play everyday. How can we make playing piano a habit, so that motviation is as effortless as brushing our teeth? If we focus on first making practicing a part of our daily life rather than worrying about getting better, then we will have set ourselves up for success. Then reaching our goal becomes when, and not if.
How to build habits? I'm still figuring that out, and probably won't ever stop. But what has worked well so far is to focus on doing my habit everyday. Play the piano everyday. How? Make it so easy to play. I'll sit for just 5 minutes and learn a scale. After 5 minutes I can get up and do something else, but 5 minutes everyday. It's almost harder to find an excuse to not play than it is to just sit for 5 minutes and then move on. I probably won't improve, but that's not the point. The point is to become someone who plays everyday. So that when motivating myself to sit down and play is no longer difficult, I can find something else to work on, like speed of a song, or notes. I'll keep finding new challenges to break down into easy steps that will become new habits.
I plan to write a post that talks more about this, as well as how to build good habits. For now I'll end this first post here. I wanted to get momentum going for myself, even if I'm not thrilled with the quality of this post. It's good enough, make posting a habit, and the more I do it the easier it'll become.