PRACTICE vs TALENT and what you should be doing to better your skills.

Here's the hard truth about talent.

Everyone seems to think that talent is all it takes to be the best performer you can be; this just isn't true. The truth is, there are many many many people in the world with talent. Talent is not in short supply, and with people being born every single day, I think we can rest assured knowing we will never have a shortage of talented, creative people in the world.

Do you know what is in short supply? Talented people who PRACTICE. There seems to be this attitude that once you've been to drama school/ dance school/ singing academy etc... there is no need to keep practice going. Even some students believe they don't need to practice in between lessons whilst they're in training! This could not be further from the truth.

The thing is, talent can only take you so far. The way I like to think of it is this... if you are relying solely on your talent, you will only ever stay at that one level. You will never progress past that natural, raw talent you have. Meanwhile, people around you who also have that natural, raw talent are practicing and honing their skills. Where do you think that leaves you? Behind the rest, that's where.

Practice is a powerful thing, and it makes a world of difference to your overall talent.

There is a really fantastic book that I recommend checking out that clearly outlines and talks about the importance of practice and why talent is not enough...

Matthew Syed's book "Bounce". Matthew was an Olympic table tennis player and wrote this book to deal with the myths of talent and talk about why practice is so important to develop your skills and become the best version of your talented self.

HOW TO PRACTICE- LITTLE & OFTEN.

I think the reason fewer people practice and rely on their talernt because they think that practice is too long and tedious. But, this is not true.

You don't need to be practicing hours and hours every single day, in fact this is potentially detrimental to your progression.

Think of it like training muscles in a gym... if you spend ten hours a day in the gym, the only thing you're going to do is cause injury and therefore regression. The same goes for practicing a skill; little and often is always the way to go.

Practice in intervals, set aside time slots for practice (30 mins in the morning, 30 mins in the afternoon, 30 mins in the evening). This ensures that the practice will be focused, specific and your brain will have the energy and capacity to ingest the information you are feeding it.

Don't go over and over things you've already learnt/ practiced. Try to focus on practicing or learning something new every time you come to a new practice/ learning session.

DON'T OVER-PRACTICE THINGS YOU ALREADY KNOW.

This is very easy to do and very typical of human behaviour. We love to re-visit familiarity because it makes us feel good.

Imagine we are learning a new song, or a new monologue. Let's say you've already learnt the first verse, or the first paragraph, I can guarantee that every time you come to practice, you will automatically start with what you already know to give yourself a little ego boost. Whilst this is not the worst thing you can do, it's worth noticing so you can be a little strict with yourself. Don't go over things you know over and over again. Try starting with the part you don't know first, spend the time focusing on that so you are using your time as wisely as possible with every practice session.

Go for a walk or a hike whilst you are practicing/ learning something. This will help you engage your muscle memory.

MOVE AROUND, STAY ACTIVE.

Lots of people will tell you that staying kinetic whilst you are practicing is the best way, and there's a really good reason for that. If you sit and learn something without giving yourself any movement or physical engagement, you are not allowing the thing you are learning to bleed in to your muscle memory. Energy generates energy. Physiological activity is how the body learns new things. Connecting with your senses and allowing your environment to be absorbed in to your learning will allow you to practice efficiently and effectively.

Don't sit around and procrastinate- if you need to take a break, then take a break.

DON'T PROCRASTINATE.

This is another very easy thing to do, and sort of goes hand in hand with practicing the stuff you already know, over and over again. If you feel yourself starting to lose focus, or you feel like you can't take in any more information at that time, then take a break. Don't try and push through the tiredness and burn out, becasuse you'll just end up practicing bad habits and getting yourself nowhere, leading to frustration and negative associations. We are capable of practicing negative information and incorrect information. These practices turn in to habits. If we continue to practice the wrong things, or we practice when we are not ready or engaged enough to practice, we will simply end up taking on incorrect information and form negative habits.

Take your time- learning something is a marathon, not a sprint.

SLOW PRACTICE GETS THE JOB DONE QUICKER.

I don't need to tell you about the phrase "slow and steady wins the race"... it's something that's been drilled in to us ever since we were little children; that being said, it's amazing how often people want to jump straight to the full speed, finished article before taking the time to try and actually practice or learn something properly.

Imagine learning the piano by jumping straight to Rhapsody in blue on your first day of lessons? Or even more specific, trying to play at Gershwin's original speed for his world famous composition without breaking it down and taking it slowly first? It wouldn't happen and you'll just go round and round in circles of frustration, desperately trying to get your fingers to move correctly, failing constantly.

Now imagine taking the time to learn the instrument, learning scales, chord progression, the lengths of different notes, dynamics, fingering etc... Then you sit at the piano, open up Gershwin's songbook and begin working your way through his work, again, slowly and with specificity; I guarantee, within a couple of weeks, you'll be playing the music with feeling, detail, dynamic and musicality.

Your brain needs time to learn things properly, but if you learn things properly and practice properly, you'll be amazed at how quickly your brain will pick things up and adapt.

DON'T PRACTICE BAD HABITS

This sounds pretty obvious, why would anyone practice bad habits? Well, if you don't practice correctly, it's very easy to do this.

The human body is fundamentally quite lazy; I don't mean that the body isn't efficient. In fact, it's quite the opposite. The body is one of the most efficient systems in the world and how? Because it likes to get things done in the easiest way possible, relevant to its ability at the time. If you haven't taught it the correct techniques and skills to achieve a task, it will find the easiest way of achieving that task.

This can be at the detriment of your progress; if we don't perform with optimum technique, or we don't learn good associsations and habits whilst we practice lyrics, dialogue or techniques, we pick up bad habits and don't progress in the way we should. If we practice properly and develop proper technique, we teach our bodies a new way to work efficiently and therefore we change the perception of what is "easy" for our body to complete a task or operate. Practice properly using the above suggestions and you will re-programme and re-calibrate your body to operate at a new level of easy that is relatively more efficient to the default setting- the factory setting, if you will.

We are inherently lazy, not un-efficient, but we look for the easiest way to get things done. Teach your body to find a new level of "easy".