2019 #32 Practice is the price of Mastery

How many daily habits and routines do you have Mastery of?
How did you get good at them?
How can you apply this to achieving your healthy life?

Transcript
Practice is the price of mastery, whatever you practice, over and over again, becomes a new habit of thought, and performance.
​So says Brian Tracy, and I agree.

Hello, everyone.

Great to see you today. And I want to talk about this idea of achieving mastery in our lives. Whether that's making healthy habits with food or with movement, about rethinking our mindset, achieving our career goals, improving our relationships, whatever it is, mastery of everything that we do in our lives, comes with practice. And I was prompted to think about this. This week. 

Over the last weekend, I was speaking with a friend of mine whose son has just started his very first job at a fast food takeaway restaurant. And it took me right back, because that was my first paid job. used to work for KFC for a number of years in high school. And as I was going through university, put me through university. And the way he was talking about it, the way the training was going and the skills he was developing the sense of pride that he was showing and what he could do. And it really reminded me that when it comes to training in those environments, perhaps you've had something similar or a job, or a skill, or maybe even taking back to school days, about when you learn how to do something one step at a time. And so many of those restaurants have this training program, where you learn one aspect of it, you learn how to pack one meal, or you learn how to cook one of the products, you might learn how to wrap a package, that product might learn how to cook something, then you might learn how to serve a customer, operate the till, take change, take the payment, give change back in the day, I'm not sure if anyone has any real money anymore.

But the idea is, that every single step is done in a particular order, with supervision until you gain at least competency with it. When you have that you move on to the next thing. You keep practicing the things you've already learned. And then when you're competent, you add on the next thing you keep practicing. When you add and get competent, we add on the next thing.

And it occurred to me that this is exactly what we do in every aspect of our lives. But so often we just do it without a particular training program. Without a particular guideline about what to do and when to do it. I really want you to think about this. Think about your life at the moment and think about how many parts of your day are taken up through automatic routines that you don't even really have to think about.

Seriously, think about the moment from the time you open your eyes to the time you finish breakfast or first walk out the door. How many routines Have you just had practice with, so often, so many times, that you now have complete mastery over those things. You know, maybe if you had a shower in the morning - I bet you if you pay attention, you probably always shower in the same way you turn the water on the same way, you wash your body in a particular order. We almost all do it automatically. Have you thought about brushing your teeth, you actually just always do it the same way. You don't have to think about it, it just happens. This is what we what we create, we create routines.

But you didn't start out knowing how to do those things. You didn't get them to be automatic, by avoiding them. We only create routines, through practicing them enough times until we gain mastery. That's really what I think of when I think about mastery over any aspect of our life is where we can do it so automatically, we don't even really have to think about it anymore. It's just happens. It's just automatic.

And when we're trying to create a healthy life. When we're trying to create a new result in our life...reach a certain goal, we want to move into the future where we're just doing that automatically. We want to look at the thoughts, the habits, the routines that we wouldd be practicing in that moment. And if there's a gap between what we're doing, where we want to be, that's our work, to train in those habits and routines. Until they are automatic.

So I urge you if you're watching on replay, stop this video, take a moment and write down some habits that you can think of really ask yourself, how did you get good at them? How did you gain mastery over them?

Alright, you're back. Now that you have that, I want you to also think about what are the current habits in your life that you have? Like some of them you just wrote down? Are there any does you have that aren't helping, that aren't moving you forward towards your goals? Are  there any unhealthy habits that you'd like to change? And if so, pause this video and write them all down...actually make a list of as many as you can think of. And if you can, how you'd like them to be.

Here hear so many people talking about - they have an unexpected result, or they get into a situation and they end up self sabotaging.  I want you to notice that there's a thought habit that happens there. Oh, that didn't work. I'm no good at this. I'll never get it. That leads us into them as unhealthy choices. Probably we go to the same sorts of things that we always go to, to self sabotage, the convenience foods, the high fat, high sugar foods, the procrastination, the avoidance, the hiding.

Isn't it crazy? Is that just insane of our brain to go, I didn't like that result or didn't get the thing I want. I didn't like it all well, I'll stop doing the things that work. And I'll do all these things that already know don't work. So crazy, because we give up our power to whatever's going on. Instead of taking it back for ourselves.

If you really want to change, there's nothing wrong with failing, there's nothing wrong with getting it  wrong. That's part of the process. You know, a child doesn't learn to stand up. by standing up there learn to stand up by trying to stand up and falling down and trying again, and falling down and trying again, it's actually physiologically how we build the muscle in our legs that can support our bodyweight. by falling over, picking ourselves up, falling over and picking ourselves up.

It is the repetition that brings us the path to mastery.

So think about those habits you'd like to change. And then my advice, as always, is pick one of those at a time, one small change at a time that you can live with, right, you're not going to try and master everything at once you have to learn how to make a burger before you can do fries, before you can serve the customer. Back to my fast food analogy, one thing, under supervision until we've got at least competency with it. Then we keep practicing it as we have add the next thing. And then the next thing. 

Take notice of what happens in your brain. When you think about all of those habits you have that you've wanted to change, you talk about changing. You've said to everyone else around you that you want to change, that you don't end up changing. What's really going on in your brain. What's the thought that says? Actually, I want to keep that habit? Okay, write that down. And I really want you to decide...Are you thinking that thought on purpose? Or is simply thinking that another habit of itself? So often it is our habitual thinking that keeps us trapped in our unhealthy habits. 

So if you're not sure, that's the thing that practice first practice the thinking, what if this was easy for me? What if of course I knew what to do? What if I absolutely could take charge of this? Like, it's a no-brainer. Easy.

Now, of course it this is where you're getting stuck. This is where I can really help. This is the beauty of having a coach, that we can see very often, what is the thinking, what are the habits that are holding you back and help you work through retraining your mind, to embrace, to gain competency and then mastery over a new way of thinking.

And everything else you create will come from that. It is the key work. So practice the healthy thinking first. So if this is an area where you do need help, make sure you reach out to me, I have some spaces available. I make time every week for complimentary coaching calls for people who are interested in finding out about more about coaching, and maybe getting help and just one small area just so they can see what my coaching is like, if that's you please reach out at www.LiveMoreLife.com.au and book an exploratory call. I also have my new series of my Stop Sabotaging your Weight Loss course coming up in September. So keep an eye out for that. That's where I train in how to change your thinking on purpose. So that you can stop sabotaging your weight loss for good. How you can take charge of thinking on purpose, you can gain emotional maturity and emotional management. Now, we don't like to think we don't have emotional maturity. But if we're giving into our emotions, we're just in reaction at the effect of them...then they're driving our results. And I show you how to change that. So anyway, all that is saying if you need help with the thought aspect or the mindset, reach out, I'll help you with that. To look at what it might be like to work together.

If you already really do have some habits you want to change, then think about is there a little change that you could make to improve that routine to make it healthier? What could you add, or alter, or replace? Is this something you could delete?

In the end, we train our body to expect certain things right? When you get up in the morning and do your run or do your meditation or do your journey, journaling? Or you do none of those things, it's a coffee, or it's a shower, brush your teeth. Whatever we train, we can train our body to expect and to crave and to look for. So why not use this amazing power that we have to train in the habits that you want to adjust the unhealthy to new habits that you can live with, that you can enjoy and really explore you can really rejoice in - that's the phrase I was looking for - every day. 

Because our life is the accumulation of our actions.

What will you do? What will you change, make it as detailed and as specific as possible. Don't try and change everything. If your brain fights you think it's too much, too big. Pull it back, make it smaller, make a smaller change.

How often will you practice this small change? hourly, daily weekly?

What will be your trigger or reminder to remember? Remember, it's not a habit you might have at the moment and you don't have me or your supervisor at work standing over your shoulder reminding you to do that. So how can you set it up so that you remember? Oh, yeah, I need to practice this new thought, this new behaviour. Now, this time, how will you remember?

Of course, when will you start? Why not start today? Why not start right now. Never too soon to create the life we want to be living. 

You can live more the life you want as soon as you start doing so.

And lastly, I want to finish up with this idea of scheduling some time in the calendar. Maybe it's tomorrow, maybe it's next week, maybe it's in a month time. But when you will review and assess your progress? When you stop and look and see what has changed? What has become easier now. Are you at competency right now at mastery? Is it so automatic? Now you don't even have to think about it. Or, does it require more practice? I'd love to know.

And I really encourage you to share with me in the comments. So if you are watching this on replay, make sure you give me a life to me reaction If you're watching on YouTube, don't forget to subscribe so you get notified of every new video. And if you're not already, why don't get on my mailing list, I send out quotes and notes, and hints and tips and ideas along with notification of each of these videos every week.

Let me finish up with another quote. This one's from Robert Greene, who says "Mastery is not a function of genius or talent. It is a function of time and intense focus applied to a particular field of knowledge." Mastery of the life we want to be living is simply a function of your intense focus on a particular habit, or particular routine, until you master it.

I really want you to embrace this idea and practice these little changes. We sometimes think we don't want to because it's too slow or that's not enough. I need to do more. But I bet you if you tried doing more I bet you if you tried changing everything and once I bet you if you tried making big changes chances are you didn't keep them. 

Big change comes from accruing many many small changes, that we master.

So I encourage you...go forward into your life this week and actually choose one little habit, one little routine to add to, to delete or to adjust and practice it - so that you can have the mastery over your life that you want. 

[Transcribed by https://otter.ai]