The Practice – By @t0o_ma1nstr3am
The Practice
Marc talks a lot about mindful practice and practicing all sorts of things, sometimes it can feel overwhelming, especially when the pressure gets to you or your frustration reaches its peak…
Gratitude is spoken about a lot, but honestly, I never really, truly, knew what it actually meant when Marc spoke about it, until last week when everything really did get on top of me and I began to panic. It was at this point that the guru himself Mr Lewis (not to be confused with the other guru-like gem that is Mr A Lewin), said “You haven’t been doing your gratitude have you?”.
It was almost spooky how he saw into my soul and knew that no; I had not been doing my gratitude (whatever that really meant).
Cutting to the heart of the story, I learn that there’s an app in which you can grow an ENTIRE Japanese garden, just by listing three things you’re grateful for each day. Being a plant lover, this detail was crucial! The app, known as Gratitude Garden, sends you a reminder each day and every so often sends you little nuggets of gold in the form of things you were grateful for a week, month or year ago.
In essence, what I am trying to say is that this app has had me actually reflecting upon each day. Taking the time to mindfully practice my gratitude and craft too. I may have been a little slow off the mark due to my own stubbornness; wanting it to work my way, but now reflecting on it I know that the Good Sir was right.
There have been a lot of day zeros and I am still trying to get into the habit, yet slowly but surely I know I will get there, in the same way that I have with other habits.
In other news, I have started and finished a few books since my last SCAB. Most recently I have been reading The Practice by Seth Godin (hence the killer title which I have borrowed for this SCAB). From all 31 pages I’ve read I can tell you that its bloody brilliant and no, this is not something that I say about every book I read; it is not said lightly that its bloody brilliant.
Godin said in an interview “You can wait for the muse, you can wait to be touched by a magic lightning bolt and you can wait to get lucky, but a practice will always be better than that and a practice doesn’t guarantee that it’s going to work but a practice, a way of thinking about your work, and doing it on the regular is the single best way to be a productive contribution.”. Hammering home all that Marc has said about regular mindful practice.
Something else I’ve learned recently is that there is no such thing as multitasking, only multi-switching. When you check your phone or get distracted, it takes you 20 minutes to get back to where you were before you got distracted. Maybe someone will write a SCAB on this, might even be my next one!
I’ll leave the link here to an interview with Seth Godin, from a recent event called Clarity at Speed, hosted by Journey Further.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2F42beXqoBo