Practising

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

I practise mindfulness meditation. I feel uncomfortable calling myself a ‘meditator’ as it implies that I have somehow achieved meditation.  

In fact, what I do is practise. Over and over again. I sit down (OK, often I lie down - self compassion right?), close my eyes and focus on my breath. Today that looked like noting that I was breathing and then15 minutes of running through my to do list, a tricky email I had to write, an inspiring client, some reflections on the practice of meditation that started to formulate themselves into writing and the odd moment of realising that I definitely wasn’t focussing on my breath, and attempting to refocus. And repeat.  A fairly textbook example of what my practice looks like. 

What mindfulness meditation has given me isn’t an empty mind (for that I am still searching), but an appreciation of the concept of practice in my life. It provides a constant opportunity to start again, to see how things feel right now and to exercise curiosity.  And it is wonderfully applicable outside meditation. 

Rarely in life is there a single moment which is The Only One That Matters. But often - particularly in work - we approach our days like that: heaping pressure on ourselves to get it right, be perfect, and crucially not fail. That drives risk averse behaviours, piles on stress and undermines confidence. The stakes are painfully high every time. 

What if we take a different approach? One that rejects notions of succeeding or failing, and instead cultivates awareness, learning and compassion. What if we approach challenges and new behaviours not as a pass or fail, but as a practice? As soon as we do so, something heavy falls away, and is replaced by lightness, and curiosity. We are no longer desperately attaching to a binary outcome (often outwith our control), but taking a more playful view of what is going on. Treating things as practice doesn’t mean not taking them seriously or not trying. Practice is hard work, but it is work that has value whatever the outcome. It keeps us firmly in a growth mindset. The goal becomes learning, not what we achieve.  

We’ve all heard that practice makes perfect. As you might expect from what I’ve written so far, I’m no fan of perfect. Perfect creates pain, unrealistic expectations and a lack of compassion. It closes down rather than opening up. Bin perfect, and opt for strengthening. Or at least practise binning it; undoing decades of conditioning may not be simple. But whatever we practise, we strengthen. Whether that is a new behaviour, leadership approach or way of talking to ourselves. At a neurological level, practice creates and builds new neural pathways - so what at first felt really uncomfortable over time starts to feel familiar, even automatic. Practice makes permanent. 

Some questions for you:

What is your relationship with the word practice? 

What freedom might reframing things you find difficult as a practice allow you? 

How might your leadership be served by being vulnerable about what you need to practise? 

N.B. I’ve also realised that my spelling practice of the two meanings of the word was a long time ago and the neural pathways are nowhere near as strong as they once were. But I’m letting myself off striving for that spelling perfection.