When my kids used to play the violin, they were supposed to practice every day. At first, they loved it—they pulled out the violin and scraped out a couple Twinkle Twinkles and that was that. As the months went on, and they realized what “every day” means, their enthusiasm…waned. The novelty had worn off, and they were facing The Gap (an idea Ira Glass first talked about.) They weren’t good enough at playing the violin for it to be fun on its own, and practicing was a drag. The goal of practicing stopped being “to get better at the violin” and started being “to get this over with,” or, maybe, “to get Mom and Dad off my back.”
So how do you get through that Gap? Is the goal, the thing you are practicing every day to achieve, clear and vivid enough to pull you through the Gap, through the days when you really really don’t feel like it? If it’s not, you have some choices:
You can decide that goal isn’t worth going after, and repurpose that time and energy. You quit the violin.
You can reimagine your goal—visualize yourself as first chair of the Boston Philharmonic, and each day you practice gets you a little bit closer.
Or you can decide that the practice is itself the goal. That committing to doing something every day is worthwhile in and of itself.
But I’ll suggest that what you shouldn’t do is keep slogging along halfheartedly. “To get this over with” is really not a good enough reason to do anything day in and day out.
Check out this wonderful video by Daniel Sax, on the great Ira Glass and his conception of The Gap.
