Let’s get rid of the term “practice.” Practice implies you are not any good yet. It also has the “feel” of being work. Why must we always grade ourselves? It’s OK to strive to be better, but why can’t we enjoy the activity for what it is, even when our performance is less than stellar?
Instead of telling my son to practice soccer, why not just tell him to go play some soccer. Instead of telling myself I need to practice the saxophone, why don’t I just tell myself to PLAY the saxophone?
We are all at different levels of expertise. But my rendition of a song on the sax is no less “playing the sax” than John Coltrane doing it. We both are playing the sax!
Stop practicing for some future dreamed about expertise and enjoy the activity NOW.
On a related topic, if you get tired of doing some activity, then stop doing it! You are NOT a quitter. “Quitting” is another negative term we need to banish. There’s a good thread on the AlwaysLearning yahoo list about this. When a child decides to quit an activity, he’s not a quitter, he’s a “try-er.” This is a great positive way of looking at it. And it applies to us adults too!
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