You can never ever get good at something you do NOT DO. Inherently we all know this, but we are very good at deceiving ourselves.
We are very good at thinking that we are doing something just because we think about it a lot or have a desire for it.
Last year I proved to myself that I can do anything that I am persistent at. Note the distinction here is – anything I am persistent at – versus anything I want or dream. Last year I started hula hooping. At the beginning I could not even keep the hoop up around my waist. The hoop just kept falling to the floor. But my instructor said all that was expected of me was to try and to keep on trying.
And so I did. I tried and kept on trying. After a couple sessions the hoop started staying up and falling to the floor less and less. Awww sweet success! I could keep the hoop up around my waist, now it was time to try hip hooping, after that leg hooping, then chest hooping, shoulder hooping, neck hooping and hooping around all my 2000 body parts.
It’s been a year and I have come so far in hooping and happily still have so many more tricks and body parts I will learn to hoop from.
Hooping is my line in the sand. Everyone should have a personal line in the sand. Something that you have done or achieve that it looked like you could not do.
Now I truly know I can do whatever I set my mind to doing and persistently try. Hooping as taught me that. Hooping was a lot of repetition and more repetition. Like inventing the light bulb – You try a trick and the hoop instantly drops so you pick it back up and make adjustments. You try ever combination that you can do over time until the hoop stays up.
If I had quit each time the hoop fell I would never have succeeded. I was very lucky to have an instructor who told me that failing was part of the process. Each time the hoop fell I was one step closer to keeping it up. So yeah, I basically had to fail to succeed at hooping.
Now what if I take that mindset to the rest of my life? Or apply this to anything I want to accomplish?
My light bulb moment or Edison moment is that I have to drop the hoop a thousand times before I succeed! So let’s play the drop the hoop a thousand times game.
Drop your hoop a thousand times (or more)
How to play
- Choose something you want to achieve . (Example playing the keyboard)
- Start doing the most simple task and only that task (example, learn to identify the note of the keys by sight)
- Fail at it (That is the drop the hoop part)
- Try again but make adjustments (that’s the picking up the hoop part)
- Do this everyday even if for a brief 5 minutes. (This is key. This is where I keep deceiving myself. I really think I am learning to play my keyboard when I have not literally touched the keys in 2 months. Somewhere I lost momentum. Maybe I was trying to learn too many parts at once )
- Repeat, Repeat until you have some mastery a thousand times if needed. (Thomas Edison taught us that’s how you invent a light bulb)
- Move on to the next simple step and keep “dropping and picking up the hoop “
I am going to start playing the “drop the hoop” game today with learning to read music. I was on a great streak with learning music before the Christmas break, but took a break and did not come back to it.
I know another trick to making this stick and that is to tie this to some meaningful goal or regular activity. So for me I want to learn to read music or play the keyboard so that I can succeed at choir.
I will have to do a blog on a “trigger” for your goals.
I played the drop my hoop game today. I practiced my keyboard lessons today. I made myself do it and started over the course I was doing.
I am doing the Udemy course Beginner Piano by Benedict Westenra.
My only goal this week is to master playing Imagine . The task each day this week is to play Imagine at least 8 times daily and to have a jam session with John Lennon (that is play along to his live recording of the Imagine Song).
wish me luck!