Perfect Practice Makes Perfect. Practice Just Makes Permanent.

Forget the concept that ‘Practice Makes Perfect’

Perfect practice makes perfect

Practice simply makes permanent.

Years and years of being told practice makes perfect has been a lie!

I can practice something incorrectly my whole life. And get really good at doing it wrong.

And although imperfect practice is better than no practice, it may not lead to you eventually getting it perfect.

It is only through reiteration, slightly adjusting, tweaking, and modifying that you eventually get to perfect.

You have all experienced it yourselves and witnessed it in other people.

Learning any new skill is hard work.

It starts off filled with mistakes, blunders, and can feel stiff and awkward. But over time and practice, it gets better and easier.

Imagine a toddler taking their first steps.

Clumsy, unbalanced, stumbling and uncoordinated.

Flash forward a year or two and it’s a coordinated movement.

Flash forward another 5-7 years and it’s a well-oiled machine. An automatic process.

But it’s only the best of the best who continue to improve and reiterate and modify. Only the sprinters, the runners, the endurance athletes who hone their running mechanics to be optimal, to be most efficient, reach the pinnacle of running movement skill.

There are a lot of amateur and casual runners who run their entire lives but will never achieve optimal running form or efficiency despite running regularly.

From a neuroanatomical level, this process of brain communication involves nerve impulses transmitting an electrical signal. It passes from neuron to neuron in the brain and spinal cord until the signal reaches the intended muscle. At first, the connection is weak, redundant, a little inconvenient or a little less straightforward.

I like to imagine it’s the same as after a recent snowfall. There is no tracks, no trail, no path. It’s hard to walk. It’s a blank canvas when you first start.

But as we practice, you can see how the muscle movements become smoother, it feels more natural and comfortable. What practice is actually doing is helping the brain optimize for this set of coordinated activities, through a process called myelination. Myelination is the process of making those transmitted nerve impulses faster and stronger. The signal can travel faster and more efficiently. The signal remains strong.

Let’s revisit the snowy metaphor. Imagine having walked a path in the snow at least once now. It becomes easier to follow that same path again. The snow is already packed down where steps have already flattened it. It’s easier to see retrace your steps along the path.

And the more you do these same motor actions, the more efficient your body gets at sending these same signals over and over again. The more you do the same coordinated motor sequences, the easier it gets.

This also goes for your thinking.

The same associations and connections between thoughts can become ingrained as meaningful connections. You start to think about the same things because the connections you make between different ideas becomes a stronger and stronger association.

It’s the same as walking the same snowed path over and over. The path is flattened out and easily navigated. It becomes hard to even stray away from the path because of how smoothed out it is for you.

When it comes to productivity, efficiency, working, and creativity, you can imagine the role of routines, the stagnancy that can occur with reliance on unconscious or automatic habits and the slow process of rewriting or starting new habits. Without even realizing it, you can be practicing the same imperfect but permanent thinking patterns. You may become ‘stuck in your thinking’ without even realizing it and shy away from new or different ways of thinking because it’s a struggle, it’s slow, or it doesn’t come as easy.

There’s a physical reason for that, that you now know, in your brain. That myelination pathway for efficient nerve signal transmission may not be as relevant for new or different thinking. So it may be slower, it may be harder at first, but it may be closer to the ‘perfect’ state you are seeking rather than an imperfect but practiced state.

And I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with embracing and accepting the efficiency bump that myelination gives you and that practice gives you.

I think it’s important too to acknowledge and understand the possible ‘side-effects’ of that just to be awarre.

It can provide solace and patience in yourself when you are starting something new.

It can teach caution with biases and preconceived notions. Why do we always do _________ this way? Am I shying away from trying a new or different method simply because this way is easy?

It becomes just as important to intentionally recognize the habits, patterns of thinking, and spend the time and effort to tread new pathways in the snow to steer ourselves away from pre-existing paths.

In that case, giving yourself the time and space to go slow, to practice the correct way to make sure the laid out path is perfect or as close to perfect as you can get it.