“Practice doesn’t make perfect; practice makes permanent!” ”
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“This was something my violin teacher told me as a kid, but it turns out to apply to most situations where we are learning something new, even something that feel as fuzzy as leadership. ”
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“One common frustration when learning any new skill is when you fail to do what you want to do; in the moment, you freeze or panic, and fall back to what you did before. ”
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“This often happens with my clients as they are learning a new set of leadership skills. They get frustrated because they think “I know better now!” and feel they should immediately be able to flip the switch and do the new behavior 100% of the time. ”
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“But the old reactions are embedded in the body because they brought a lot of success (aka “practice makes permanent!”). It takes repeated deliberate practice to rewire the neural networks to embed the new desired behavior. So when they fall back into their old behaviors, I remind them that it takes time to rewire their whole nervous system, so they have to keep practicing to get the results they want more consistently.”
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“I also remind them that they need energy to pay conscious attention to practice the new skill. If they are tired or hungry or otherwise under-resourced, they are likely to fall back into old habits, because the brain has been trained to do the old way as a default. So I encourage them to be gentle and forgiving of themselves when they know they’re tired or stressed, as those setbacks will occur more often in those conditions. ”
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“What inspires you to keep practicing when you’re learning a new skill and have a setback? ”
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“#leadership #deliberatepractice #coaching #growthmindset