One Apple A Day #578 - practice and boredom
Mastery requires practice.
Simple though not easy.
I often use this quote from Bruce Lee, who knows something about mastery:
"I fear not the man who has practised 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practised one kick 10,000 times."
The problem with practice and discipline is that it gets boring. At some point, sooner or later, the feeling of boredom will appear.
"The greatest threat to success is not failure but boredom." — James Clear
What can you do then? How can you keep showing up despite the lack of impulse?
I wrote almost 600 posts. The road to 10,000 is still very long but, I already received the visit of boredom. Some morning, when ideas elude me or when I'm tired, it's not easy to open the laptop and write. But I've learned something from those mornings.
The first and most important thing that I've learned is that your practice must be about developing your identity, not achieving your goals. Goals are temporary, and they work very well as motivators when they are achievable in a reasonable amount of time. They are great to start something, but not to sustain it. If you want to build a habit for the long game, you must make it about your identity, your growth as a person.
The second lesson is variety. Add small changes to keep it compelling. In my case, I write every day about something different. This makes the practice more exciting.
The third things I've learned is to not get too attached to the practice. It's not about the habit itself, it's about what I will become through the practice. So, I've decided to stay away from this practice every weekend.