When deep practice makes you feel like a failure

I gotta get something off my chest. It’s about deep practice.

Deep practice is the kind that involves real introspection.

• Paying close attention to your physical movements.
• Noticing your thoughts.
• Being aware of your habits.

Deep practice is required if you want to change things.

• Exercises that involve reconditioning basic movement patterns.
• Adjusting what you eat to have better health.
• Changing habits that aren’t working as well as you want them to.

Sounds fantastic, doesn’t it?

However, deep practice is off-limits to many people, and that’s not fair.

When you look closely at yourself, you will see problems. Furthermore, since you’re a smart person, you’ll know there’s a problem.

Yet, you’re powerless to change it. That’s because you recognize that deep practice is hard work.

But here’s the thing…

“Hard work” doesn’t come easily to everyone.

Some people are diligent and conscientious and can change routines merely through an act of willpower (or so they think). Others can’t.

Yet, the diligent-conscientious people have a monopoly on deep practice.

They’ve somehow convinced the rest of us that there’s something deeply wrong with us if we can’t maintain deep focus on our deep selves for extended periods of time at will.

As a result, when we look deeply, we freak out. We’ve been taught that when we notice a deep problem, we’re responsible for fixing it (after all, that’s what a diligent-conscientious person would do).

So, we avoid practicing deeply.

This is horribly unfair.

You should have the right to look deeply at your own habits, even for a moment.

Even if you never change anything, you should still have the right to look.

(who knows what you’ll find?)

—Michael