Barto's Basics

Imagine if you stopped trying to walk after the first time you tried…

Little toddler you stands up takes a step, falls over and decides in that moment never to try walking again.

That would be crazy!

Thankfully toddler you had no fear and got back up – to try and try and try again until you got the hang of it. And the more toddler you did it, the better toddler you got at walking.

Now imagine if toddler you took 8 steps the first time you tried walking, then fell and got back up only to decide that you could run now.

That would also be crazy!

But what’s crazier is that as we come into adulthood, we suddenly start believing that if we’ve done something once, we can immediately do the next thing without any practice. We did it once. We’ve mastered it. Obviously. Onto the next thing, right?

No! Not onto the next thing.

There will never be a substitute for repetition – in anything you do.

Can you remember a song lyric by lyric perfectly after only hearing the song 1 time?

Can you take that same road trip next month without a GPS/map and not make a mistake?

After that first lesson on how to conjugate verbs in your high school Spanish class, were you then a grammatically correct fluent Spanish speaker?

Can you lift weights 1 time and be a body builder?

Can you drive the ball like Tiger Woods consistently after only 1 time at the driving range?

You see where I’m going with this?

98% of what we do in life requires us to PRACTICE.

There is simply no way around it.

Can we agree that repetition matters? Ok, good.

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A quick story – my golf coach used to make me stand on the mat at the driving range and hit ball after ball with my eyes closed. Once I got the hang of that, he’d start talking in my backswing or making crazy sounds. Swing after swing. Eyes closed. Over and over. I hated it. Until I was playing in a big tournament and I was able to block out the noise around me and actually hit a shot with my eyes closed (because seeing a gallery of people made me nervous), I didn’t realize the value of those reps.

So let’s talk about the BASICS of Repetition:

1. Set aside the proper time to practice (weekly at the very least)
2. Have yourself an accountability partner who can check your work and will know if you’re doing it right or wrong. Someone who can coach you through the nuances of what you’re practicing. Someone to keep you humble. Someone to encourage your progress.
3. Do it RIGHT more than you do it wrong. I have seen so many people practice over the years who did the thing ‘wrong’ 25 times before they did it right once. And after they did it right once, they celebrated and practice was over. WHAT?!?!? You got more reps doing it wrong than you did doing it right. Don’t fall into that trap. Practice isn’t over until you’ve done it right more than you did it wrong. How you practice, matters.
4. You’re a master of nothing. There. I said it. We trick ourselves into believing we’ve got something totally down and we can stop practicing. False! Again, let’s consider walking. I am 41 years old and have been walking since 9 months old. I tripped over my own foot yesterday. Need I say more? Stay humble, friends.
5. Practice is not for perfection, it’s for execution. We will rarely do things perfectly so that should not be the goal. Perfection is an illusion. The goal should be execution. Do I know something well enough, that if called upon to do it, I can execute quickly and sufficiently? If the lead actor breaks their leg, does the understudy know the lines and actions well enough to step in and not ruin the play? Is this skill/thing muscle memory for me? Can I do it without thinking about it? We practice so we can execute. That’s important to understand.

The next time you find yourself saying that you don’t need that professional development training, or that bucket of practice balls before the golf outing, or the dry runs before that big presentation, or to look at those flash cards one more time before an exam…

Remind yourself that there is never a substitute for reps.

You can and should get a little bit better each day.

You’re probably not as good as you think you are. (me either, btw!)