Practice

Even once we become aware of other tools in our tool kit, we have no experience using them. We feel adept with our hammer, but are scared to even pick up the wrench for fear that we’ll fail with it.

The only way to get better is to practice — first we practice in safety (a great use of therapy) and then we practice where it matters more. Over time, with enough practice, we can become masterful at using these other tools

Life is a skill. It requires training and practice just like any other skill.

The “Dreyfus Model of Skill Acquisition” (see chart below) describes what it’s actually like to build a new skill. 

As we become more competent and expert in a skill, these basic structures are internalized: these basic routines start to “just happen” easily and subconsciously, without needing to run through a checklist. At that point we free ourselves to expand to a more advanced skill set, and ultimately to improvise and innovate based on specific situations.

A few non-psychological examples:

➡️ When you first learn to drive a car, you have to go through a long mental checklist — ignition, lights, GPS, blinker, mirrors — that is very mentally taxing. You’re almost so distracted with the steps of driving that it’s hard to notice what other cars are doing. With a few months of practice, suddenly you find yourself getting in the car, zoning out in your thoughts, and suddenly at the grocery store without ever consciously needing to think about what you’re doing.

➡️ When you learn to dance, you start out by counting the steps to the rhythm: 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3…after somewhere between a few lessons and a few years of dancing (depending on your natural endowments), the rhythm becomes part of your body — you no longer have to count, or even think about your feet — you just move intuitively with the beat.

We share this to simultaneously provide hope and to set expectations. Developing identity and self-esteem, empathy and intimacy are also skills. You can improve your relationship with yourself and with others, you can master any or all of the domains in the prior chart.

First, you need to want to do so.

Next, you need to commit to practicing 💪, work out what practicing actually means in this particular case, and set aside adequate time in your schedule.

Then you need to expect that it’s going to be really hard work and probably quite painful (if it weren’t, you would have done it already). You’re probably going to be clumsy and bad at it at first, and you’ll need to keep coming back to practice over and over again despite the pain.

Once you’ve gotten to that place mentally, the rest is action — just doing it — and compassion for yourself when it’s hard, you don’t want to, and you choose to quit.

When standing at the novice point, the most important thing I’ve learned is that everything gets easier — if, and only if, I put in the time, tolerate the pain of being bad, and continue to show up anyway. This perspective creates an important shift towards a growth mindset, where we value learning, growth and curiosity over excellence and mastery, making it easier to persist.