Blog

 Practice makes Habit                      26 October 2016

You’ve probably heard the old saying, “Practice makes perfect”. This may be true for mastering many skills or though I am a slight disbeliever in perfection, tending to believe that practice makes you more competent at a task, skill, or action.

I also believe that “Practice makes Habit”, especially in relation to the skills development we offer at Facilitate PD. In order to develop a calmer, more centred self, one that is mindful of both their own actions, and those around them, the best most effective means to achieve this is through mindful practice, every day, all of the time.

For those that have undertaken any of the units from our courses, you will notice that there are reflective exercises for you to do, that span over a week, or even two weeks. A key outcome of the process that we employ with you is to encourage repetitive reflection, undertaking the same task daily, so that by the end of the process you are either able to effectively reflect on your thoughts or actions: or even better, the process has become a habit.

The practice of breathing techniques, thought processes, problem solving approaches, and analytical steps, will re-enforce these competencies in your mind, so that when you need to draw upon them, each one will consciously become a tool that you can use to effectively manage a situation.

Will it be difficult? Of course, at first. Your mind becomes comfortable with routines and actions. Any new actions, tasks, processes that you introduce, no matter how enticing, will either slowly dissipate or become habit. Of course, the easier they are to learn, and possibly master, the easier it will be for your mind to accept them. We have tried to developed simple processes and techniques that build upon one another throughout each module and sometimes across modules.

So for each reflective process, after the allotted time is up for the exercise, we’d like you to consider whether you’ve got a firm grip on this competency, or whether it would be beneficial for you to continue practicing it for another week, or two weeks, or four!