Practice Your Skills

Practice for goodness’ sakes

It drives me crazy when people don’t practice. It doesn’t matter if they have asked me for help, received help from others, or read a book or watch some videos. The vast majority of people do not practice what they learn.

How do they expect to implement what they have just received?

Wouldn’t it be nice to use the knowledge you just acquired? Wouldn’t it be nice if you didn’t just waste your time listening to a podcast or reading a book for no good reason?

It seems like most people just expect to use the skills right at the next moment they are needed. But then what happens? Everything goes horribly wrong and might even get worse.

What if you practiced the skills and knowledge you just received so you are ready for the next moment they are needed?

We can do just that.

Think about pretty much every interview with an Olympic athlete. They get asked what they do to prepare for their event or what is going through their mind leading up to it.

What is every athlete’s response? What is going through every athlete’s mind?

The event!

They talk about visualizing their performance, their routine, the track, or their moves. The are mentally practicing what they are about to do, so that they are ready to go out there and give their best performance.

You can do this too. I call this a mind run, and you can use this technique to practice the skills you acquire.

Think about the skills and the lessons you just learned or read about. Mentally envision a situation where you need or would use these new skills. Run that scenario through your mind. Do it a number of times.

This is a powerful tool because your brain treats the visions the same as if it were actually happening. The brain does not differentiate. There is a lot of research on this topic to back that up, but you know it to be true when you wake up from a nightmare dripping in sweat.

Another benefit is the speed at which you can run multiple scenarios and trials. Your brain is fast, much faster than people physically talking and interacting, use this speed to your advantage and practice over and over.

Right away, you will begin to seat that information into your memory. The visualizations will help you remember the information when you need it, and it will be much easier to recall and access at a moment’s notice.

Turn the knowledge you gain into ‘muscle memory’ a ‘reflex’ for when you need it the most.

All the information you learn and bring in is great and could possibly change your life. Now realize how it WILL change your life because you are practicing it and using it.

Some say it takes 10,000 repetitions to be an expert. Now, use your mind runs to reach 10,000 reps for everything you learn.