Practice resistance (Part 1/2): The thoughts that stop you practising
My name is Trudi, and I’m a music teacher in Truly Musical, a music school based out of Arklow, Co. Wicklow, Ireland. I primarily teach piano, as well as general musical theory, and I blog regularly about all things related to the craft of teaching and playing piano. My lessons prioritise the development of the student musically, and although I am classically trained, I encourage students to explore all styles during their time with me.
Feel free to reach out if you have any questions or are looking to start your journey into music; I’m always happy to share my tips!
Procrastination, delayed rewards and practicing
I just finished reading the ‘War of Art’ by Steven Pressfield. It’s essentially a book about getting creative things done and ensuring the artist, in whatever form, improves and reaches their goals. Well, upon completion, it made me take an honest look at my attitude towards practising, and actually induced in myself a desire to refocus it.
Regularly evaluating your practise process, I feel, is necessary for everyone, as it makes you aware of lazy and incorrect habits that may have formed while you weren’t your usual attentive self. The book deals with the feeling of resistance you have whenever you try to do something that has delayed rewards, but also challenges you at the same time. This encompasses all the activities that require motivation and commitment to complete, as well as time and energy — like sports, writing, music, art, eating healthily, furthering education and starting a business.
“Nothing that is worthwhile is every easy.”
How people (including me) talk themselves out of practicing
There has never been a time in my life where I thought music wasn’t worth the effort, but I have often lacked the motivation to start. Some days what lay in front of me, as technique, material, or something else that I still had to learn, was daunting. And even after all these years there is always more to learn. In the past, more so than now, this feeling negatively affected my practise.
I procrastinated by worrying about what I hadn’t learnt yet, which is easy to solve. Write down what you want to work on when it occurs to you, and research how to practise it, or ask your teacher. That’s what we’re here for afterall!
Every single time you think “oh I need to do (insert activity here)”, the ‘resistance’ will come up with every excuse, then bargain and threaten until it gets its way and you’ve accomplished nothing. The litany that ensues is a mixture of your inner thoughts, bargains, excuses, insults and threats — but they’re all just your mind trying to stop you. You want instant gratification, much like that bar of chocolate now, rather than the deferred reward that comes from waiting for the healthy dinner.
This whole process happens with piano practise too!
Your mind when faced with practicing
For example, a first thought might be — “oh, I need to practise piano”, immediately the resistance chimes in with:
Bargaining — “I’ll do double tomorrow to make it up”
Excuses — “I want to watch something right now though, I don’t remember what to do from the lesson, I can’t find my music/notebook”
Insults — “You’re no good at it, you’re not improving, I’m not as good as so and so”
Threats — “Even if you practise every day, you’ll never be good”
So how do you overcome the resistance? Well, the fear of even trying to sit at the piano because you’re afraid of failing is essentially faulty logic. If you want to succeed failures are inevitable, that is how you learn. What you’re doing can’t be a complete failure if you’re trying to do something, if you are trying even the tiniest amount, you are closer to succeeding than if you do nothing.
This is the important point. Any real, meaningful attempt at improving, learning or practicing, is 1000x more valuable than not doing anything. Even if it’s only for 10 minutes.
In the second part of this blog, I’ll breakdown some of the thoughts that creep in when you start practising, and give you some of my top tips for building a meaningful practice routine! Best of luck in your practising, and feel free to reach out to me through my contact details on the site if you wish to learn more, ask any questions, or if you’re interested in studying music with me at Truly Musical, Arklow, Co. Wicklow.