You want to be good at something?
Okay, okay. I know. That answer is easy. Everybody wants to be good at something.
But what does it take to get good at something?
You have to do whatever that something is over and over and over and over and over and over. Get the picture?
If you want to be good at something, you have to practice that something well. You have to repeat it.
Repetition is the key. Repetition with purpose.
If I want to be a good hitter, I need to repeat my swing over and over again. I need to repeat my over and over again while attempting to get a little closer to a perfect swing with each subsequent repeat.
If I want to be a good writer, I have to write. Over and over and over again. I need to work at crafting the words better with each idea and each sentence. Repetition.
Very few, if any, kids walk into first grade, kick up their feet, and tell the teacher they’re ready to read War and Peace. The first graders have to learn the sounds the letters make, learn the combinations and then the meanings. Thousands of repetitions are required before your average first grader is going to where the wild things are or even seeing Spot run. Thousands of repetitions, hundreds of mistakes and failures. Being good at something is all about the Fail Cycle.
- Try
- Fail
- Regroup
- Learn
- Try again
- Succeed
- Level up
- Back to #1
Practice with a purpose. Repeat with the purpose in mind. Get better.
- Hit the ball harder.
- Write better stories.
- Teach kids to read.
- Construct a house.
- Repair a car.
- Operate a farm and/or a ranch.
- Design a bridge.
Anything worth doing is worth doing right. Anything worth doing is worth doing the best you can.
Over and over and over and over and over again…
Why all this nonsense on repetition with purpose?
Because I think we are in a place where we want the “Easy Button”. If it ain’t easy, I ain’t doing it. Failure means “quit trying”. Failure means packing up the tent and crawling home. We want to be good, we want to pound our chest about how awesome we want to be, but we forget the “anything worth doing” bit.
We forget the satisfaction is in the journey and the trials and the tribulations. We forget that if we do the work and do the practice and do the repetition, good things usually happen. The “Oh yeah, that thing is really hard, but I just kicked its ass” feeling is a feeling like no other.
Speaking of repetition. This is post #399 on The Coach Hays Blog. Who would have ever guessed when I started this thing back in 2009 as an energy outlet after my football coaching career went belly up it would still be in existence?
I guess the better question is, how can one guy be so damn stupid?
Thanks for hanging around and putting up with my rants and raves and idiocy.
Who knows what the next 100 posts will bring?
More repetition on the theme of STUPIDITY without a doubt!
THE COACH HAYS 