The Art of Practice

I have learned a lot this week about mastery and what it takes. It is interesting to realize that I have been living my life completely wrong for years. I have been constantly focused on what comes next. On becoming the best, or becoming successful but it turns out that it’s really not about any of that. It’s about the art of practice. About doing something, practicing it, working at it because you love it. Practicing for the sake of practice itself. Not because you want to be the best, not because of a goal you’ve set but because you love what you do. It is something so simple and yet so profound! It made me look at life completely differently. As I’ve worked on some of my hobbies like playing volleyball and guitar, I’ve found more joy in it because I am not doing it to amount to something, I am doing it because I love doing it and that has actually made me better this week!

Another insight that I thought was powerful from the reading this week was the quote “the essence of boredom is to be found in the obsessive search for novelty.” That impacted me greatly when I read it because I realized that sometimes we create our own problems by wanting more than we have or saying “I’ll be happy when…” The key is to live in the now and simply enjoy every moment.