The Art of Practice
The Art of Practice
I got a book on skill improvement written by a Cirque du Soliel juggler named Laido Dittmar, "The Art of Practice." It's fascinating, and I'll dig into it more this week. But one thing hit me, hard. It had to do with how circus families train their children. What he said was that they constantly expose their children to a vast variety of different skill sets, to see what their inclinations might be. What they seem to be looking for is:
Something the kid loves enough to practice for 8 hours a day.
Something for which they can provide a role model/mentoring within their expanded community.
Something that can be shaped into a professional skill that pays.
Fascinating, really. The reason it hit me is that Tananarive said something very similar about her Mom. That Mrs. Due exposed her children to a vast variety of social and kill experiences, to see what they might enjoy and be good at. Frankly, if you enjoy something enough to practice, and you have mentors/role models to guide you and set the strategy…in a few thousand hours, you are gonna be good at it. The next question is "can it be turned into a life way?"
As we all know, the luxury to say to your kids "you can be whatever you want" belongs to families that can offer a safety net: "go ahead and be a poet. We've got your back."
Middle class and below, if you have a kid who knows what they want early, parents will often try VERY hard to guide that kid into some stable life path: doctor, lawyer, etc. Something conservative that will help anchor the community. If you came from a low-income family, and they supported your desire to be an artist, you are VERY fortunate. Even wealthy families will often insist that their children go to law or business school, and give them vast amounts of crap if they want something in the humanities.
What are you going to practice hard, without being urged. IN other words, out of LOVE?
Can we find a role model for you, someone who has succeeded? This is harder in the arts than in business professions--doctors and lawyers can be found in the yellow pages. Pay for an hour of their time, and they'll tell you EXACTLY what they did to get their credential and set up business.
Is there enough money in it to support yourself, pay back your education, and help support your family?
I think what we all want is to have the financial or emotional stability to tell our kids they can be anything they want, to follow their dreams. But man….that's a luxury poor people often cannot afford. My mother BURNED my stories because she was terrified I would fail in an artistic career, as my father had. Destroyed their marriage. She just loved me and was scared for me.
Tananarive has said that she doesn't think she could have been a writer if not for the support of her parents, that she doesn't know how I did it. Frankly, sometimes I don't know myself. I burned my bridges behind me and fought for my dreams like the third monkey on the Ark's ramp.
And part of what I did was constantly, CONSTANTLY, seek the mindsets, behaviors, attitudes and so forth of successful writers and artists, especially those who had grown up poor. Especially if they were black. And somehow, made the decision that I'd rather fail as a writer than succeed at anything else.
I had that #1 thing: I loved it and you couldn't pry me away from writing with a crowbar.
That second: finding role models, that was a LOT harder. But I did it.
And the third? Well, books like "Think and Grow Rich" had very solid blueprints on how to make money in business…I just had to figure out how I could make that apply to the arts.
One of the things that I learned was that the progress you want is the result of your habits, assuming you put in the hours and have the right strategy (extracted from others who have walked the path before you.). If you have those things, you can "touch base" with your long term plans every day or week or month…but stay focused on the DAILY ACTIONS. Take pleasure in having a productive routine, and actually performing it every day…and find 1% improvement. Just look for a tiny bit of improvement.
DON'T FOCUS ON THE HOURS OF TIME, seemed to be the emphasis of the masters I studied. They focused on the IMPROVEMENT. If they found something to get just a little better at, every day, they could quit. This was surprising, and NOT what most people do. Most people practice pretty mindlessly, just going through the motions. But masters look for the improvement. It might take hours to get into a practice groove where they can find that improvement…or it might take minutes. Or might not happen that day. But THAT is what they look for.
1% improvement. Along a path delineated by a role model who has the skill you crave, preferably starting where you started. If you can't find one, graft TWO different role models together:
One who started where you started and became seriously successful at SOMETHING.
The other, someone who achieved your specific skill.
Look for the commonalities between them.
Here's a belief I have yet to disprove: there is ALWAYS someone with fewer resources than you had, who did better than you. Study them. Invariably, their daily actions are not as yours.
This study, finding something you love, finding a role model, and strategizing how to make it pay…seems to be such a basic, common aspect of success that I think this particular book might be VERY useful. I'm going to be exploring it this week.
Namaste
Steve
