How to keep the fire burning!
When I get interested in something new, give me about 3 months and it will fizzle out. You could say I have a 3 month attention span- it applies to everything without fail!
So if I’m doing something I really want to do for the rest of my life, how do I catapault myself past the three-month wall? Let me tell you what’s happening.
At the beginning of the year, I started to resume taking organ lessons. The only consistent daily practice time I would get is if I woke up at 5:15 in the morning, and practiced an hour with headphones on.
For the first couple of months, I was extremely diligent. Each week, I would tape record my organ lesson, and listen to it the next day making special note of all the stuff I learned, and how I sounded. Each morning I would wake up way before the sun came up, record myself practicing for an hour, and then listen to the recording later in the day and critique my playing.
Then, about the beginning of April or so, I found that I got less interested in recording myself and listening back to the recordings. I was also more likely to sleep in a bit and maybe start practicing at 6am. At that hour, there is a lot of stuff going on in the house with everybody waking up, and it’s distracting. The practicing is not as effective.
Then, I found myself rationalizing that I would wait to the afternoon to practice a couple times a week. This is not nearly as effective as getting up and hittin’ it first thing in the morning.
Then, a couple of days ago, I said screw it, I’m too tired to practice. I skipped a day. Alright, you may think, after a few months, why not take a day off? It’s not that bad I guess, but for me, it’s a slippery slope in to lazyness. When you first decide that it’s okay to skip a day of practicing, you’re opening a can of worms that should have stay shut.
(To my credit, I practiced twice as much the next day to make up for lost time. I’m not going to beat myself up about it, just wanted to make a note of it)
I had my lesson last night, and it’s going to be a long time until my next lesson. At 5:20 this morning, as I was walking the doggie, I thought about giving myself a day off from practicing, exercising, and all my good-boy stuff. It seemed like it would be a great idea just to pop back in bed for another hour and start off the day refreshed.
How do you fight the little devil on your shoulder telling you to relax, take time off? After all, it’s not such a bad idea.
I think ultimately in this life, I have to answer to myself. Nobody cares if I practice at 5 am, or go running, or do 50 pushups in the morning. Those are things I’ve chosen to do because I want to be the best person I can be – and I have decided that I just can’t afford to let myself down again like I did a million times in the past.
For the rest of my life, I want to be proud and assured about the person I am.
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