We’ve all heard the saying practice makes perfect. My high school basketball coach hated the phrase. “Practice doesn’t make perfect, practice makes permanent,” he’d yell from the sideline. Perfect practice, which I don’t believe to be possible, makes perfect.
Practice Makes Permanent
Day-in, day-out habit forming creates permanent habits. If we start with bad habits, and continue bad habits on a daily basis, they will soon become permanent. Same holds true with good habits. Once we devote ourselves to good habits, they become permanent in our lives. The hard part is ensuring we’re creating good habits and eliminating bad ones. We must consistently practice, both physically and mentally, building habits that we want to become permanent.
Perfect Practice Not Possible
Perfect practice, in my opinion, is impossible. There is no perfect way to do something. We also can’t perfectly practice anything because we’ll never reach perfection. There will always be another way to improve ourselves, even when we achieve close to perfection. Since we can’t practice perfectly we have to do the next best thing, practice with our best foot forward.
Using This to Our Advantage
Practice shouldn’t be shied away from. Practicing is a key element to arriving at the place we want to be. Forget the motto practice makes perfect. It’s untrue. Perfection is not something to strive for because we’ll never achieve it. Instead focus on what we’re doing today, what we plan on doing tomorrow, and make sure those actions align with good habits.
Practicing a good habit today, and tomorrow, will propel us towards a permanent good habit. At the same time we must focus on eliminating the bad habits. If we consciously eliminate the bad, we move toward permanently eliminating bad habits. Our goal shouldn’t be striving for perfection, but being acutely aware that our actions today lead to the person we will become. Our practice will become permanent.