7 MISTAKES SABOTAGE THAT WILL YOUR PRACTICE (And How to Avoid Them)
Before you consider what to DO during your practice time - Lets first look at what you SHOULDN T do. Avoiding these 7 common practicing mistakes will keep you from spinning your wheels, getting off-track, and becoming frustrated! These things have been proven to not help practice. There are plenty of barriers to effective practice without adding in these! Starting your practice session by looking at what not to do is a bit of a paradox as we always want to jump right in and start doing things, but as with anything, a little preparation goes a long way. So take a look at these, and if you are doing any of them, check out the How to avoid this mistake section for each. Once you know you are not making any of these mistakes, you will be ready to forge ahead with positive and effective practice! (If you want more tips like these, click here to make sure you are signed up on my free email list so I can send you more practice strategies.) "Before anything else, preparation is the key to success." Alexander Graham Bell
1. Bad Framing How we frame what we are going to accomplish during our practice can absolutely dictate the outcome. Science tells us that we move towards what we are focused on, whether it is good or bad. When we think of things that way, it is important to consider where our focus is. Let s take a look at a basketball player who is going to the gym to practice. Now, if he says I am going to take 200 free throws before I leave that says one thing. BUT if he re-frames that statement and says I am going to make 100 free throws before I leave that is a big difference! See the distinction? Just taking however many free throws leaves the door open to not make any, w to and avoide not achieve this mistake anything. Other than maybe a workout! But saying he will make a certain number tells him exactly what he is going to do, sets up a goal and a measurable achievement. Always state what you are going to do during your practice session in a positive manner and in a way that states the ultimate outcome. I am going to make 25 putts from 15 feet before I move on. I am going to play through this section of the song 3 times perfectly before I do anything else. This tells your mind in no uncertain terms what you will do during your practice time.
2. Play Over Practice When I teach Smart Practice I go over the 3 Ps that every skill will present you with. The one that I see cause the most trouble for people is Play basically spending too much time Playing instead of Practicing. This is common in most disciplines; sports, music, the arts. It can rear it s head as simply as just wanting to jam with buddies instead of practicing your drums, or just wanting to play a pick up basketball game instead of spending time alone working on your shooting form. "Muscle memory doesn't descriminate between good and bad technique!" Click Here to Tweet This! The really dangerous thing about this one is that it can give you the illusion that just playing w to is avoide all you this need mistake to do to improve. You think Hey, I spent time doing this so that has to mean I am getting better. While you can get better in certain areas of some things just by repetition though playing, without a plan and a way to monitor your actions you can also unknowingly develop some really bad habits at the same time. Remember, muscle memory doesn t discriminate between good technique and bad technique! Jot down a reminder in your practice notebook, telling yourself that putting more focus on practicing now will eventually lead to way more fun playing. Just shift your desire to play a little down the road and you will find that the sacrifice now will pay off big later.
3. Losing Focus I have seen so many people who start out working on their skill with a great deal of focus. But then, familiarity, slower than expected progress, and sometimes just plain boredom jump in the path and cause them to stumble. We have all been practicing something and had one of those groooaaaning moments where it seems like there is no point in going on. That is when it is easy to lose focus on the long term reason for practicing in the first place. K. Anders Ericsson is one of the premier experts on skill acquisition and he tells us that practice is often hard and not fun, so students have to do it for the long term benefits. Work on things in small bites. Small bites of info, small bites of time. Variety is the spice of life. Don t just drill on one thing over and over, but rather mix up the stuff you work on in your practice time. Studies have shown that you get better by doing several things during a practice session instead of just pounding on one over and over. A scientific study by Dr. Emrah Duzel that was published in Neuron outlined the benefits of novelty on both learning and memory. Mix it up, keep it fresh, and it will be effective! Have a set practice plan. Organize what you are working on and have a system to practice it. That way when you start to lose focus, there is a blueprint to look at to get you back on point.
4. Defeated Attitude Often when a music student sits down to practice the first thing they say is I can t play this. Or a golfer goes out to work on putts and says I can t make it from this distance. If that is your mindset when you practice, then you are going to struggle. I always tell students Of course you can t do that yet! That is why you are practicing!. Your attitude when you practice should be one of optimism and enthusiasm because the practicing you are about to do is what will allow you to eventually make those putts easily! You have got to believe that your practice is paying off and will continue to pay off. That is what will keep you motivated. "Whether you believe you can or believe you can't, you're right." Henry Ford First realize that practice works! I have never seen anyone who practiced the right things, in the right way, and put in a reasonable amount of time, NOT get better! Second, look at the very fact that you are practicing as a process that will get you to where you want to be.
5. Lack of Mental Preparation Many times as we look at the things we need to practice the list is filled with various physical drills. If you are a golfer you need to work on your swing, putting, and stance if you are a guitarist you work on your hand position, speed, and dexterity. And then, when it comes time to perform your skill, you find yourself making mistake after mistake! Often it is because you have spent so much time on the physical things that you haven t prepared for the mental part of the performance. Having a solid mental game when you perform is something most people realize as important, but they often forget that aspect of skill needs to be practiced just like everything else. "Build your mental game just like you build your physical game, one step at w a to time, avoide and this with mistake constant systematic practice." Click Here to Tweet This! Start with a mental "pre" routine you go through to help you focus before the performance. Use visualization to go through your skill in your mind before you actually do it. Build mental triggers to help get you on track, or get your mind out of the way when necessary. Block out some time in your practice schedule to work on your mental preparation and you will see your performance improve!
6. Rushing You finally get some time to practice, you have some things you want to run through, but the problem is, you also have a dinner date coming up. So what happens? You rush through your practice, making mental mistakes because you are not fully engaged in the moment. Hurrying through something not only denies you the full benefit of the practice, but can actually be a step backwards as often you are once again reinforcing bad habits basically practicing how to do it wrong! If you are not fully focusing on each part of your practice time, you are probably wasting time. Rushing through something easy and missing some of the subtle points is something that plagues us all from time to time as we let our minds wander into other things we need to do. Be slow, methodical, and fully engaged. Remember that a short time of focused practice is more effective than a long session where you are not really into it. We all think that If we just had more time that would cure our problems and we would be better. However, studies by Anders Ericsson and others show that even though many of the top performers in the world across multiple disciplines could spend 10 hours a day practicing, most only spend 3 to 4. Why? Because they have discovered that slowing down and practicing with shorter times of intense focus is the most effective way to improve!
7. No Practice System We have all done something like this before. You are about to go practice your tennis serve. So you take a bucket of balls out to the court and start swinging away. Maybe you have some good serves, maybe some sail off the court, but by the end, you have for sure hit that bucket of balls. Or you are going to practice your Spanish. So for the next half hour you listen to a CD of someone speaking some phrases which you utter back, then you think about a couple of key words you need to remember for your upcoming trip to Cabo. So are these examples of practicing? Not exactly. This is the common misconception that most people have about what it means to practice. This is a little like focusing on Play over Practice. While it is possible to get better to some degree doing things haphazardly, it is also very possible to develop and then reinforce those bad habits. Not having a system or a method of how to practice is what causes this. A system can give you the tools you need to make your practice effective, which means you will actually have to spend less time on it! Use a practice system or method which helps you: Set your goals - Organize your material - Outline a schedule - Execute your plan - Assess and analyze your practice. It should also give you the tools to work through your material. Spending some time planning, before you start to practice, will lead to improving faster and more efficiently.
Those 7 mistakes can derail your practice session if you re not careful. Taking some time to make sure those mistakes are not part of your practice plan will keep you moving in a positive direction. Remember that practice is something you have to practice so don t get discouraged if you get off track sometimes. When you find problems with your practicing strategy, just correct any issue as soon as you can and put the focus back on the things that work. Thanks for checking out this ebook! If you enjoyed it, please feel free to share it! You re more than welcome to share it with anyone you d like, and distribute it on your own site and social media channels as well. (Check out the easy to share links below). Just don t steal, modify or take credit for it, and always link back to www.smartpracticeacademy.com when you use it - that s all I ask! Click to share on Twitter Click to share on Facebook Sign up for cool practice tips, hacks, updates and techniques. Sign Up We won't send you spam and will keep your email address safe.
If we haven't officially met - I'm Jeff Scheetz. I have spent most of my life teaching, coaching and inspiring people to practice, achieve their goals and flat out get better. I ve been fortunate in my life to be a teacher, a professional musician recording music and touring the world, a speaker, a writer, a champion Frisbee dog trainer and more. I have always believed that anyone can get better at anything! Of course the only real way to improve anything in our lives is by practice. So knowing the most effective and most efficient ways to practice is key to achieving all we want. That is really what drove me to develop the Smart Practice system and why I started the Smart Practice Academy, to share techniques, methods, principles and the inner workings of real systematic improvement. I like to say that Smart practice is where the science of practice merges with the art of practice. That is a potent combination. I think fusing sound scientific studies and research with experimental and real world experiences gives us our clearest vision of how to get better at anything. Plus it can be a lot of fun! So, if you dig this kind of hands-on logical approach to getting better, I would love to have you join me as part of the Smart Practice tribe! Make sure you are signed up for my free email list for cool stuff, and contact me anytime! Together We'll Practice Smart & Get Better!