PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE  By Lloyd J. Thomas, Ph.D.

 

Every week, I encounter people who say they want to make changes in their lives, but rarely practice new behaviour or skills. When I was little, I was told if I wanted to be able to play the piano, I would have to practice. I didn't. So now, I don't. I sometimes wonder how long I'll have to wait to be able to play the piano: perhaps forever? Probably...unless I practice…. Do you ever wonder how long you will have to wait until you are happy...until you are coping better...until you feel good about yourself, your child...until you enjoy life...until...? Without practising, you will indeed, wait "until forever."

Linguists tell us that it requires 21 days of regular practice before language habits become "unconscious." We know it takes the same amount of practice to re-program your unconscious with new thinking habits, new emotional habits, and new behavioural habits. There are 17 sets of three-week periods in a year. If you practice one new, key habit for 21 days, in a year's time you will have transformed your life!
Observe the child learning to walk. S/he practices all kinds of small, new behaviours. Some seem to work better than others. With more and more practice, the child puts together a series of complex movements, balance skills, and visual-motor corrections...until...yes, s/he walks. Then, with time, attention, concentration, and effort, the child practices walking until the skill is so well developed, s/he doesn't have to practice it anymore. S/he just does it "automatically" without much conscious thought. The child makes walking an unconscious habit through the use of practice. Practice doesn't make behaviour perfect, it makes it unconscious.

Do you remember learning to walk? Do you remember the effort you made in learning to talk? Do you remember how you became frightened at mice? Do you remember learning all those adaptations necessary for you to survive your first few years of life? All the habits you developed before age five are probably so automatic now; you don't need to think of them. You just do them "automatically" without conscious thought or attention. You have practised those adaptive functions so well, they are unconscious. Perhaps today, some of those same unconscious habits aren't working very well for you. Maybe they are even hurting you or preventing you from being the happy person you want to be.

If you are unhappy with the way you’re living today, change it! "But I can't change how I am, or where I live, or how I cope," you say. "I've been this way all my life" is what people often say, thereby preventing themselves from the practice of new, more pleasurable, more effective ways of functioning. You can and will change. The important thing is to change in ways you choose and to direct that change through the use of practice. The first time you walk up a mountain, it seems difficult and requires a lot of energy. If you practice climbing that same mountain every day for 21 days, you will look down from the top, on day twenty-two, and wonder "how you could I have ever thought this mountain was hard to climb?"

Making positive changes in your life is usually simple. It is rarely easy. Walking up a mountain is simple, but not usually easy the first time. But, practising changes makes them easier and easier until...yes, they are automatic and unconscious. Practice those new, perhaps even "frightening" changes you know you want and need. Practice them over and over again. Practice one at a time for 21 days. Practice changes you know will improve your life. Life-improving habits, which become automatic through practice, always bring delightful surprises to you and increase your enjoyment about being alive. 

I know I can learn to play the piano, even at my age. I think I'll go practice my scales.