Aristotle claimed that true excellence comes from repetition and is thus not an act but rather a habit. I find habits fascinating, especially the ones that you create or optimise in a deliberate conscious way.
The whole point behind this blog for example was to create a habit of running and of writing… helping me to stay fit whilst forcing me into the habit of explaining myself in words.
Even after five years though it’s not a fully formed habit as it still requires conscious effort… I don’t yet suddenly notice that I’m leaving the house with my running kit on. In fact, if anything, I’ve got into the habit of getting up late on a Sunday and reading before I even think about running.
Good or bad, a fully-formed habit is like a line of computer code that is run by the subconscious. Hitting the snooze button is a good example of a suboptimal habit. Better to set the alarm later to the point that you want to get up, thus elongating the length of quality sleep. And then get straight up, thus helping develop conscious resilience.
Left to its own devices the subconscious will persuade the body to remain in the current comfortable state until a different motivation causes it to re-prioritise. Only our conscious is concerned with the longer-term benefits of getting to work on time.
Driving or playing a musical instrument is an example of a different kind of habit. Here the task is way too complex for the conscious to handle with its limited bandwidth. Instead. a period of practice is needed in order to show the subconscious what pattern it needs to repeat and under what circumstances. Provided the pattern is learned patiently and precisely, then a high degree of competence is feasible.
Higher degrees of competence are possible when you repeatedly break the pattern as you learn it, each time pushing the performance bar a little higher. This is the power behind interval training, where both muscles and mind learn that they can do more. Unfortunately the approach is also frustrating, as it constantly delays the reward of ‘felt competence’ for a future time.
Three years ago tomorrow I embarked on an experiment. Despite having played the guitar for 35 years, I had not progressed for 25 years and my use of the instrument had slowly declined to zero. I embarked on a series of 52 weekly guitar lessons and forced myself to practice for at least five minutes each day.
I’m still no virtuoso but my ability has improved and with it my passion. This progression has been typically non-linear. There was very little progress for a long time and then everything started to improve at the same time as the subconscious started to take over.
In the last nine months I have composed several songs and learned two short jazz pieces. The experiment continues and is now part of an interesting meta-habit… a habit of experimentation, of creating other sustainable habits.
Meanwhile, I finally relinquished the fascinating Wired 2013 magazine I was reading this morning, climbed into my running gear and set of into a grey day.
The surface water had subsided from last week, but the mud had thickened. When your feet are wet, it’s easy to persuade yourself to run straight through the puddles, but with the glutinous mud today and relatively dry feet I tried to stick to a dryer line. This meant that I was constantly testing the limits of my core stability muscles as my feet slithered this way or that on the steeper gradient at the margins.
I ran the same short route as recently, out to Wivelsfield and back via the magical path, with the latter still being uncharacteristically waterlogged.
At one point I stopped briefly to balance across a particularly wet bit and experienced a Forrest Gump moment… you know, the one where he just stops running and turns his attention to new challenges.
It was momentary, but palpable and that’s where the power of habits really come into their own. Rather than give in to the subconscious feeling (and hit the snooze button) I just started running again.
The time was slower at 55 minutes for the 5.2 mile route and it didn’t have the highs of my last run… as you can see this has made the task of writing more complex, hence my rambling post. But it was still a worthwhile step in the slow pursuit of excellence.
