One of the things I’ve always loved to do is to draw. Not because I’m great at it, I just enjoy drawing. And my daughter and I draw quiet often. She always asks me to draw her favorite cartoon characters, like Mickey Mouse, Strawberry Shortcake, Dora, and Disney’s Princesses.
Lately she’s been asking me, “How do you draw so good, why can’t I draw like you?” What a great opportunity to teach her about practicing. So tell her, you’ve got to practice. If you want to get good at something, you simply practice. There’s no talent, no luck, it’s just practice, and keep improving. I’m drilling this into her brain (she’s 5, so it’s easy), and she believes it. She doesn’t doubt that she will not be able to do it.
Recently we bought one of those piano keyboards with a stand. And she’s been playing around with it. I taught her to play the tune to “Happy Birthday” and “Jingle Bells” (That’s about 50% of what I know ) Anyway, she’s asking me, “So if I practice can I be good at this too?
You see we all need to remember that practice is the key to anything. This is both mental and physical.
I remember years ago, I was starting out (it didn’t last but for 3 years) in a jewelry business. I was learning to set diamonds, and one of the settings called bead or pave setting, requires a TON of practice. And you start with putting cubic zirconium into copper, before you move on to gold and diamonds.
I’ve spent weeks, practicing on copper. But as a result I learned how to do it.
When I began in sales, one of the things that we all were taught, is to practice our phone scripts before making appointments.
Professional athletes practice all the time. It never stops.
But somehow most people got this idea, that once they learn their craft, there’s no need to practice.
If you’ve been following this blog, then you know that I talk a lot about the mental preparation. This takes practice.
When you start planting mental images of the things you want, your conscious mind will start putting up resistance. It’s not used to it.
It’s just like when you first start going to the gym, after a period of not working out, your muscles begin to ache. But after a few times, it goes away, and you feel good.
You need to practice and be persistent with mental exercises that you do.
The more you practice the better you will become. Being able to control your thoughts takes lots and lots of practice. It’s not difficult, but it does take effort and persistence. In “Think and Grow Rich”, Napoleon Hill talks about being persistent. This persistence is not just in your efforts and attempts to grow your business, but also in the mental preparation that is the necessary part of making it big in business.
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