Building a Solid Practice Habit – What is a Habit?

There’s a world of difference between practicing, and having a practice habit. Those who understand how to build a habit will get the results. Then there are those who say “I know I’ve failed to stick with this before. But this time will be different, because I want it more than I’ve ever wanted it before. And that’s the key ingredient: wishing really hard. Disney told me so.” These people will fail. Every. Time. If you visit a gym in early January, you’ll see what I mean.

A habit is an efficiency hack that your brain does. It’s a way of automating an action so that it doesn’t require a conscious decision. This way, your brain gets to save its energy for things that really need it. A study at Duke University found that 40% of our daily activities are the product of habit, not conscious decision.*

Of course, I don’t mean that you can practice on autopilot while browsing the internet. It’s not the practicing that gets automated. It’s the decision to practice that becomes habit. It’s opening up the case and sitting down at the music stand. The watch beeps to tell you it’s practice time, and like clockwork, you hit the practice room. After that, of course, your brain has to switch on and engage itself in the process.

Contrast this with an action that’s not a habit. The January gym rats, for example. Every time they work out, the stars have to align. They have to have the willpower at the moment when they make the decision. They have to have a strong enough “why” to make it more of a priority than anything else. And if it’s a close call, any plausible excuse that would get them off the hook will sabotage their workout. Sooner or later, they’re tired or busy with other things, and they stop working out.

This is the main point that I’m trying to get across here. Building a practice habit is the key to consistently advancing as a violinist. Habits are stronger even than written goals. By a long shot. And that’s why it’s so important to work on building a practice habit instead of just practicing. It makes the whole thing more consistent.

So, how do you build a habit? That will be the topic for the next post.

*Neal, D. T., Wood, W., & Quinn, J. M. (2006). Habits—A Repeat Performance. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 15(4), 198–202. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8721.2006.00435.x