Damn! Why is this so hard? I should be good at this already!
We’ve all been there.
This thought might arise when we’re playing a game or a sport. It could pop up during a miscommunication with your partner or child. It’s probably most common when we’re learning something, whether for work or school or just for a hobby.
Many of us walk around with mistaken assumptions about how life works. We assume that we can become skilled at important things quickly. We believe that when things are difficult, it means there’s something wrong with us. We think it’s all supposed to be easy.
But life isn’t supposed to be easy. Important tasks demand high levels of skill. Pursuing mastery in any domain requires dedication. Cultivating loving relationships takes effort. If you want to do work that matters, you shouldn’t expect it to be easy.
This is also a common theme in my work with students: School is supposed to be hard because learning hard things makes you smarter. Most students won’t wind up using Shakespeare or trigonometry in their careers, but they will benefit from training their brains to handle difficult ideas. (Side note: If you’re in the market for academic support, click here.)
So instead of believing that it should be easy, you need to adopt the practicing mindset. If you have the practicing mindset, then you understand that all of life is practice. Your work is practice. Your relationships are practice. Your habits are practice. Even your recreation is practice.
The Practicing Mindset at Work
If you’re a doctor, we don’t say you’re doing medicine; we say you’re practicing medicine. Lawyers have a legal practice. Counselors have a therapy practice. And this is not idle language. These are careers that demand continuous learning and professional growth.
Why not apply this language to all jobs? Classroom instructors are practicing teaching. Software engineers are practicing programming. Store clerks are practicing customer service. All work is practice.
One reason people hesitate to adopt a practicing mindset with their work is ego. They believe practicing implies that they’re not good enough. They see themselves as a finished product, and they would like to be seen as polished and complete. They’re ashamed to be seen as less than perfect.
But there’s no such thing as perfect. There are no perfect architects. There are no perfect bus drivers. There are no perfect humans. Everyone is a work in progress.
And more importantly, no one actually wants to work with, employ, or be served by someone who isn’t learning and growing.
Do you really want your surgery done by someone who stopped learning as soon as they got their job? Wouldn’t you rather have your surgery done by someone who has been continuously studying and improving during the course of their career?
Would you ever hire someone who believes they already know everything? Not when you could hire someone who is open to instruction and mentoring.
Do you prefer coworkers who are stuck in their ways? Or do you prefer coworkers who are mentally flexible because they view themselves as a work in progress?
When I first started working as a tutor, I was good at my job. I helped students, and they liked working with me. But seven years of practice and professional development later, I’m much better. I have a tutoring practice. The same is true of my coaching work.
A key component of the practicing mindset is understanding that, in the pursuit of mastery, there is no upper limit. No matter how skilled you are, there’s always room for improvement.
In Raise Your Game, Alan Stein Jr. tells an inspiring story about watching Kobe Bryant (then at the peak of his career) go through his 4am practice routine:
“For forty-five minutes I was shocked. For forty-five minutes I watched the best player in the world do the most basic drills.
I watched the best player on the planet do basic ball-handling drills.
I watched the best player on the planet do basic footwork.
I watched the best player on the planet do basic offensive moves.
Granted, he did everything with surgical precision and super-hero intensity, but the stuff he was doing was so simple. I couldn’t believe it.
Later that day I went over to him. ‘Thanks again,’ I said, ‘I really enjoyed watching your workout this morning.’
‘No problem,’ Kobe replied.
Then I hesitated, not wanting to sound rude—or worse—condescending. ‘You’re the best player in the world. Why do such basic stuff?’
He flashed that gleaming smile of his. ‘Why do you think I’m the best player in the game?’”1
The best athletes in the world don’t rest on their laurels – they keep practicing. Why should your work be any different?
The Practicing Mindset for Recreation
Speaking of sports, the practicing mindset is very helpful even if you’re not a professional athlete.
Whatever you do for fun – tennis, skiing, piano, knitting, crosswords, video games – you’ll enjoy yourself more and improve more readily if you see your recreation as practice.
The alternative is to see yourself as a fixed entity, which feels fine when you’re performing well, but feel awful when you’re doing poorly. And since the purpose of recreation is to enjoy yourself, you’ll enjoy your playtime more if you adopt the practicing mindset.
For example, sometimes my partner and I do water coloring. We’re beginners, so the art we make is rather unremarkable. But do we feel ashamed of ourselves for making mediocre paintings? No. We understand that we’re engaged in a practice, and we enjoy the process of incremental growth. The same goes for the complicated board games we play and the difficult jigsaw puzzles we do.
All play is practice.
Play evolved as a way to practice critical skills in a low-consequence environment. Picture tiger kittens stalking each other in the underbrush – they’re practicing hunting. But in addition to improving specific skills, play also helps you see everything you do as a practice. So we can add cultivating a practicing mindset to the many benefits of play.
The Practicing Mindset for Habits
I do not simply see my healthy habits as things to do each day; I see them as practices. When I read, write, exercise, or meditate, I don’t just go through the motions. I’m always striving to do these things a little bit better. The practicing mindset helps me continuously improve at the very things I’m doing for self-improvement.
In addition, the process of behavioral change is itself a practice. Of course, there are many excellent strategies to employ for quitting bad habits and sticking with good habits, but using those strategies consistently and effectively takes practice.
Furthermore, the practicing mindset helps you see that the process of behavioral change in a healthier way. You won’t always execute your routines perfectly, and that’s okay. You can falter, dust yourself off, and recommit. And even when things are going well, the practicing mindset is needed. Although the neural pathways for your old bad habits have fallen into disuse, they’re still there, so you need to remain diligent.
All habits are practice.
The Practicing Mindset for Mindsets
Even our mindsets are a practice, which means that having a practicing mindset is something you’ll have to practice. This all goes hand-in-hand with having a growth mindset – understanding that you can improve because your brain can change. This is not an all-or-nothing belief; it’s a way of thinking that you can increasingly incorporate into how you live.
All helpful mindsets, from realistic optimism to being proactive are practices. You have to maintain them through consistent action, and you should reinforce them by regularly consuming wisdom.
You won’t always think about things in the best way, and that’s okay. But you can strive to continuously improve how you think.
All mindsets are practice.
The Practicing Mindset for Relationships
The same attitude is essential for cultivating relationships. Every relationship, from the ones you have with your coworkers to the ones you have with your family, takes practice.
On a mundane level, there are social skills to practice, such as remembering names. On a more profound level, there is the practice of deepening your connections, which is all about adding to the marble jar: finding ways to add marbles more often, but also choosing to add marbles when you don’t feel inspired to do so.
And the practicing mindset is probably most needed for romantic love. Fairy tale romance is exactly that – a fantasy. Real love takes work; it takes practice. So if you’re lucky enough to find a life partner, don’t assume that it’ll just be “happily ever after.” Instead, commit to be practicing love ever after.
All relationships are practice.
All love is practice.
The Practicing Mindset for Life
The practicing mindset offers an antidote to crippling perfectionism.
Life is never perfect, and it never gives us an opportunity to be perfect. The only option we’re given is practice – to practice acceptance when life doesn’t give us what we want and to practice continually becoming better.
And this, I hope you can see by now, is a good thing. Practice isn’t just a part of life. It isn’t a chore we have to endure in order to reach our goals. Practice is life. All life is practice.
If we’re striving to live well – if we’re really here for a good time – then we should always be practicing.
1 Stein, Alan Jr. Raise Your Game: High-Performance Secrets from the Best of the Best. Center Street, 2019.