After discussing the topic of practice, musicianship and related issues with Beth, I decided to do a little research on the science of practice. I love this piece written by Dawn Gregory, a Quora contributor, and self proclaimed “Emissary of Love.”
How do you become motivated to practice something you love, even if you’re not good at it?
The recognition that you’re not good at something is the first step on the path to mastery. It means that you’ve learned enough to realize how much you have to learn.
A raw novice cannot see this.
The next step is practicing enough to notice your abilities start to improve, albeit ever so slightly.
This prepares you for the third step — being able to ask relevant questions about why you’re not improving faster. The answer to these questions is almost always “more practice.”
So you practice and practice, and slowly your questioning recedes. You become the actor and the one who is acted upon; i.e. you are now conscious of learning while you practice.
At this point you are officially an amateur.
Again you realize there is SO much more to learn, but you are competent at least. You know enough to point exactly where your expertise is forming, and where you are severely lacking.
This is where many people stop pursuing mastery. They see expertise emerging, and call themselves a “professional.” A professional practice slows the learning process, but, it also enables others to benefit from what you’ve learned.
The amateur/professional becomes a master through exploratory practice. Branching out from the locus of expertise into the areas of lack, there are many times you’ll fail.You begin to realize how much more effective it is to fail than succeed, in terms of your learning process. You actively seek to fail because you know it accelerates your learning.
In the final stage, one seeks other masters to help you see through your blind spots. This is a neverending process, that you continue to pursue by the simple fact that you love it.
At every step along the way, the best way to motivate yourself to practice is simply practicing. Practicing is the only way to tell if you are getting better.
This first step is the most difficult in this sense, because it takes a lot of practice before you can see yourself improving.
Rely on the fact that every failure gets you closer to your goal. Practice with the explicit intent to fail and you learn more than simply practicing what you can already do well.
If this answer seems dissatisfying, it’s because you’re asking the wrong question.
