You Want Change? Create Habits That Stick
I decided to take up guitar lessons, not because I want to be the next contestant on BGT (Britains Got Talent) or X-factor, nor do I fancy my chances of busking or anything musically related. I wanted to learn it for my own pleasure, my own development.
What I learnt:
Habits, habits, habits, let me explain more.
We are creatures of habit, actually, 95-99% of the things we do is through habit, the way you dress, the way you think, everything. So just like putting on your favourite shirt or blouse, you don’t what sleeve to put your arm in first, you just dress unconsciously. Same for your trousers, jeans or a skirt.
It’s the habit that does the work, you just hand over your dressing ability to your sub-conscious and trust it won’t fail you. So to put this to the test with my guitar learning lessons, turns out it’s the same, create the habit of knowing when and where to place your finger, or fingers and the music sounds beautiful.
Now I’ve been learning to play for just one week, putting in approx 30 – 45 minutes every day, my fingers are sore from holding the strings, but I can successfully play ‘Sale & Pepper – Push It’ and now I’ve moved on to ‘Bob Marley & Wailers’. ( I did take a couple of days out to let them recover) This second lesson is much harder because it involves all the strings and not just one, this also uses more fingers too.
So why am I telling you about guitar lessons and finger placement, because its the habit that makes the lessons successful for me, the repetition of playing the same song over and over again makes the habit stick.
It’s easy to think you want better results in your life, but thinking is a conscious process, and as described above, our actions are based on habits, this is a subconscious process. So to think about it is not enough, you need to create the habit at the subconscious level.
How do you make the habit stick, well this is very similar to that of my learning to play the guitar, practice it over and over again until it forms into a habit, and just like my fingers, it may become painful but if you want the result, you must continue. Remember its also ok to take some time out, just like I did with my fingers, recovery is super important.