Once you have a cue and a routine, you might think you’re done. You’re not. There’s a third piece of the puzzle, and if it’s missing, your efforts will be shot.
Imagine you’re training a mouse to run through a maze. You have a CLICK sound to cue him. The routine is clear. And yet the mouse sniffs around, oblivious. Clearly he needs a piece of cheese or he’ll never run the maze.
You need a piece of cheese too. The reward for running the routine is an important piece of the puzzle. It tells your brain that the routine was a Good Thing To Do. And let’s face it — practicing isn’t as fun as what every young music teacher claims it can be. Why practice the violin when you can spend that time watching cartoons or reclining on the beach?
Some violinists make the mistake of beating themselves down in the practice room without offering themselves a piece of cheese. They play the first few notes of the day. “Oh my gawd! I sound horrible! I’ll never be as good as that Eric guy.” You might even be right, but you’ve just punished yourself for running the routine. (And thank you for the compliment, by the way. I’m flattered.)
Let’s go back to the mouse in the maze again. You’ve got the cue and the routine, and hip-hip-hooray! The mouse ran the maze. But instead of getting cheese, he gets a tiny electric shock. That mouse is going to quit. 100% for sure. Don’t do this to yourself.
This brings up an important dilemma. Being critical of your own playing is a necessary step to improving. You have to know you’re out of tune. And your tone is too forced. And you’re rushing here, dragging there. So how do we build a practice habit if we’re always bringing our attention to our faults? Doesn’t that by default mean that we’re giving ourselves the electric shock?
Unfortunately yes. Practicing the violin can be frustrating. And you’ll never close the gap between your current playing and your ideal playing, no matter how hard you try. But thankfully for us, there is a solution to this problem — you tip the scale by rewarding yourself for good behavior as much as you can.
FINDING A REWARD THAT WORKS FOR YOU
The first thing to know is that rewards need to be as immediate as possible. The longer you have to wait for it, the bigger it has to be to have the same effect. “Practice every day for a year, and we’ll go to Disneyland” is weak motivation. “Practice tonight from 6 to 7, and then we’ll play games” is stronger. “There’s hot chocolate waiting for you in the practice room” is strongest.
If a reward is delayed long enough, we call it an incentive. Incentives aren’t bad, but they happen too long after the fact. Your brain doesn’t make the mental connection between the action and the reward. So the incentive doesn’t form a habit.
Everybody has different tastes. What works for me won’t quite work for you. But sharing my experience might give you some ideas.
I found my strongest reward by accident. I like to have something to drink while I practice. In the summertime, my favorite drink is iced tea with lemon and honey. One hot summer day, I came home all sweaty and thought to myself, “Iced tea would be just the thing… I should practice.” And then it dawned on me.
Think about how my brain worked that day. I craved the reward, so I wanted to go through the routine. It didn’t make practicing “fun.” It was still just as keenly aware of how imperfect I was. But it was rewarding and enjoyable none the less.
This brings up an interesting point about how a habit develops over time. At first, when you see the cue, you do the routine, and then you get the reward. Shortly after you get the reward, your brain essentially parties by releasing dopamine. Over time, that spike in brain activity happens sooner and sooner. Eventually your brain starts releasing its happy chemicals in anticipation of the reward. Give it a little time, and the dopamine coincides with the cue. Now you’ve developed a craving. And that craving drives the habit loop so strongly that it would be harder to inhibit the habit than to indulge in it. This is the ultimate goal of building a practice habit. It’s easier said than done, but it is possible.
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