lack of control

A law practice.
A medical practice.
A dental practice (ugh).
All of those make me shudder.
Still practicing? Really? Or continued mastery? Getting better at it all the time?
Often it’s not clear. I think I’ll come back when you get good.

Is it me or should they should change that?
Spiritual Practice.
Nobody suffers when you haven’t mastered tolerance; forgiveness; or downward dog. Or do they?

When you talk to anyone that’s mastered…anything, all they can tell you regarding their success is that “they put in the time.”
Nothing happens overnight.

I can be a lazy slug, and I love instant gratification—so I’m pretty much screwed.

According to the excerpt from this groovy article below, even talent won’t skip you to the front of the line; which if you think about it makes sense. If you’re good at something chances are you have no resistance to a shit-ton of practice. You’ll rack up your ten thousand hours in no time!

So here it comes: I’m newly committed to this anomaly; this control freak Kryptonite—this thing called…SURRENDER.

And just like in the old days, when I used to suck at meditation; I’m willing to put in the time. But unlike meditation where you commit to sit twenty to forty minutes a couple of times a day; you guys! it is literally a minute by minute commitment!

I know that it will most likely take me the rest of my life to feel as if I have the hang of this, but I’m willing to put in the practice.

That is until I see something shiny—then all bets are off!

Ten thousand hours is a rule of thumb that gets thrown around a lot. If you practiced every hour of every day it would take you over four hundred days to reach mastery according to this theory. Which is why “an hour here, an hour there” WOULD actually take a lifetime.

“How you do anything is how you do everything.”

Falling in love with Practice. I think THAT’S the key. Repetition over repulsion (I just made that up!).

Just some Friday-Food-For-Thought. It’s where I’m at right now.
Practicing acceptance.(Wait. What? Why can’t I have what I want, when I want it?) Practicing ease and flow. (Wait. I always thought that was a legend—yet there are some that say it exists) Practicing surrender. (Wait. Did that guy just cut in front of me?)

Carry on,
xox

10,000 Hours of Practice

In the book Outliers, author Malcolm Gladwell says that it takes roughly ten thousand hours of practice to achieve mastery in a field. How does Gladwell arrive at this conclusion? And, if the conclusion is true, how can we leverage this idea to achieve greatness in our professions?

Gladwell studied the lives of extremely successful people to find out how they achieved success. This article will review a few examples from Gladwell’s research, and conclude with some thoughts for moving forward.

Violins in Berlin

In the early 1990s, a team of psychologists in Berlin, Germany studied violin students. Specifically, they studied their practice habits in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. All of the subjects were asked this question: “Over the course of your entire career, ever since you first picked up the violin, how many hours have you practiced?”

All of the violinists had begun playing at roughly five years of age with similar practice times. However, at age eight, practice times began to diverge. By age twenty, the elite performers averaged more than 10,000 hours of practice each, while the less able performers had only 4,000 hours of practice.

The elite had more than double the practice hours of the less capable performers.

Natural Talent: Not Important

One fascinating point of the study: No “naturally gifted” performers emerged. If natural talent had played a role, we would expect some of the “naturals” to float to the top of the elite level with fewer practice hours than everyone else. But the data showed otherwise. The psychologists found a direct statistical relationship between hours of practice and achievement. No shortcuts. No naturals.

Sneaking Out to Write Code

You already know how Microsoft was founded. Bill Gates and Paul Allen dropped out of college to form the company in 1975. It’s that simple: Drop out of college, start a company, and become a billionaire, right? Wrong.

Further study reveals that Gates and Allen had thousands of hours of programming practice prior to founding Microsoft. First, the two co-founders met at Lakeside, an elite private school in the Seattle area. The school raised three thousand dollars to purchase a computer terminal for the school’s computer club in 1968.

A computer terminal at a university was rare in 1968. Gates had access to a terminal in eighth grade. Gates and Allen quickly became addicted to programming.

The Gates family lived near the University of Washington. As a teenager, Gates fed his programming addiction by sneaking out of his parents’ home after bedtime to use the University’s computer. Gates and Allen acquired their 10,000 hours through this and other clever teenage schemes. When the time came to launch Microsoft in 1975, the two were ready.

Practice Makes Improvement

In 1960, while they were still an unknown high school rock band, the Beatles went to Hamburg, Germany to play in the local clubs.

The group was underpaid. The acoustics were terrible. The audiences were unappreciative. So what did the Beatles get out of the Hamburg experience? Hours of playing time. Non-stop hours of playing time that forced them to get better.

As the Beatles grew in skill, audiences demanded more performances – more playing time. By 1962 they were playing eight hours per night, seven nights per week. By 1964, the year they burst on the international scene, the Beatles had played over 1,200 concerts together. By way of comparison, most bands today don’t play 1,200 times in their entire career.

Falling in Love With Practice

The elite don’t just work harder than everybody else. At some point the elites fall in love with practice to the point where they want to do little else.

The elite software developer is the programmer who spends all day pounding code at work, and after leaving work she writes open source software on her own time.

The elite football player is the guy who spends all day on the practice field with his teammates, and after practice he goes home to watch game films.

The elite physician listens to medical podcasts in the car during a long commute.

The elites are in love with what they do, and at some point it no longer feels like work.

Here’s the rest of the article and their website.
http://www.wisdomgroup.com/blog/10000-hours-of-practice/

I’m writing this as a self reminder, although I’m sure you could use one too.
Let this salvage your week or at least your Saturday.

I cannot control the traffic or the way other people (idiots) drive.

I cannot control the cable guy, the electrician, the handyman, the trash picker-uppers, the tree trimmers, the guy who’s making my latte, or the air conditioning repair guy. I cannot control the time they will arrive (which is NEVER inside the promised window) how well they will perform their task, or what personality traits they posses, (too chatty, too pissy, too flirty, too…)

I cannot control anyone, or anything about the DMV. Period. End of story.

I cannot control the weather. I can have every app, and alert, but it will seldom cooperate when I hold an event outdoors; and I NEVER have an umbrella or sweater when I need one.

I cannot control my dogs or any animal for that matter. I can guide them and train them, and make suggestions, but they all have minds of their own and there will be slobber on my white walls, water and/or muddy footprints all over my wood floors, and fossilized vomit next to the bed. It’s inevitable despite my best intentions. This goes for children as well.

I cannot control my spouse, or my family. (See above).

I cannot control the government, the postal system, the medical system or the educational system. But I can vote.

I cannot control bad grammar. Their-there-they’re. Its-it’s. I could care less, It’s a mute point, ugh
Dear God, make it stop.

I cannot control the speed or dependability of my WiFi connection, although I still think if I yell obscenities loud enough, it will be shamed into complying.

I cannot control my hair. Where it grows, what color it wants to be, and it’s texture. It’s time to give up the good fight.
While I’m at it, I cannot control eye wrinkles, cellulite, lip lines or dark under eye circles, so I’m done letting Madison Avenue sell me the snake oil.

I cannot control how my garden grows. I can fertilize, weed and trim, but it has plans of its own to which I am not privy.

I cannot control aging. It has a superpower called gravity, and the combination are unbeatable. I surrender…you bitches.

I cannot control what others think of me. It is impossible.
I can carefully cultivate my image; but one false move, one bad outfit, snarky comment, or piece of spinach in my teeth and all that hard work is shot to hell.

I cannot control the manners of others. When a man lets a heavy door slam in my face, as I exit a building right behind him; instead of jumping on his back like a crazed spider monkey…I send him love.

I cannot control what’s happening on the planet. Too many moving parts. (Which is true for all of it – everything in life.)

What I’ve discovered is this: ALL of my suffering comes from thinking that I can control things. I (we) cannot.

But here’s the one thing I CAN control – my perception and attitude. That’s it.

I can control ONLY my own energy and what I bring to the day, to the table, to every situation I encounter – even to the mirror, and THAT can change it all.

As my mom used to say when we were fighting with each other, as kids, “You just pay attention to yourself – watch where YOU’RE going.

Enjoy your weekend!
Xox