Practice makes permanent.

Growing up as a musician, I had excellent teachers who reminded me constantly of an important motto:

Practices makes permanent.

Most people hear this and think inside their heads “Wait. I thought it was practice makes perfect?”

It’s not helpful to strive for perfection. It makes it a lot easier to feel defeated when we don’t arrive at our desired outcome (attachment) in our expected time frame (judgment).

It’s compelling to strive first for perfection and in music that usually means attempting to play or sing something in the prescribed meter. It’s easy to gloss over the same mistake over and over again because the attention is on the outcome — reaching the end — and not on the precision along the way.

When we think of it as practice makes permanent it opens the playing field a lot. Because what you practice becomes permanent (muscle memory/habitual).

In music it’s really visceral. If you continuously practice mistakes and don’t ever slow down to correct the mistakes and play or sing more precisely, you train your brain and muscles to repeat the mistake. You literally create new neural pathways which are not functioning optimally. You sabotage your attempt to be impeccable and masterful in both technical and musical expression.

In life it’s exactly the same way. If you are so focused on a desired outcome and getting there quickly, not only do you risk staying stuck, but you also miss out on the joy which lives in the nuance. You miss the presence, and presence is what makes the music.

It’s worth asking yourself: what are you practicing? Are you moving so fast that you are glossing over the important nuances? Are you truly present with each moment as it unfolds? Do you need to slow down and deconstruct a few things in your life in order to truly live well?

Whatever we practice — how we behave, how we think, how we show up in the world — gets etched into our brain and unless interrupted, is very likely to repeat itself over and over. The more and longer we practice it, the harder it is to change (and yet still not impossible!).

Catch yourself if you find yourself saying “this is just who I am.”

It’s not who you are. It’s just a symptom of how and what you’ve been practicing.