The old saying "Practice makes perfect" sounds great, but is a bit misleading. I've practiced a lot of things in my life and rarely (if ever) actually achieved perfection at any of them. But, I'm happy to say, I have improved in all kinds of areas with my practice so it was time well spent. Improvement feels good even when it doesn't lead to perfecting. Today I was reminded about the importance of practicing even the most mundane of things - especially those mundane things that are important and you think you "should" have all figured out by now... (daily eating habits anyone?)
What brought this to mind was listening to someone talk about their struggles with eating in moderation when it came to eating pizza. Typically the speaker chose to never have pizza (because she knew it would inevitably lead to her eating far too much of it and then feeling terrible afterwards). For years, her solution was to simply never have pizza in the house and to be sure when she went out for dinner she went to places that offered plenty of alternatives in order to avoid the pizza "binge" cycle of over indulgence and regret.
Then...the idea of practicing eating in moderation occurred to her. Her solution? Eat pizza everyday - just one-two pieces - but every. single. day. This would allow her to practice having a small portion regularly. The fact that her new "rule" meant that she HAD to eat a slice or two of pizza every day meant that there was no sense of feeling that she'd "better enjoy as much as possible now" because she knew that tomorrow she'd be enjoying it again. This daily practice helped her achieve a balance in her eating. The pizza no longer controlled her and eventually felt much less like an indulgence and more just like any other food she encountered. I've read about individuals who applied this to quitting smoking. Quitting seemed like such a daunting task, so they just go into the habit of practicing short-term "quits" - all the while knowing they'd start again, until one day, one of "quits" took, and they never got around to re-starting the habit. Yet another individual wanted to stop over-eating dessert. His solution? Make dessert mandatory every single night but only eat half of it.
Where do you want to improve? How can you practice at that?
