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Practice, practice, practice ...

The key to getting different results
is to develop different habits.

Many of us have heard the joke about someone asking for directions to Carnegie Hall. "Practice, practice, practice!" was the cryptic reply.

 

There's controversy surrounding how long it takes to develop a new habit. Some say 21 days, others say much longer. In fact, we are all different so it's going to take as long as it takes for each of us. But the central success ingredient is repetition. If we want to learn something, we have to put in the reps.

 

That applies in the gym, it applies to any new skill we'd like to master.

 

In his best selling business book, Getting Things Done, David Ramsey presents his five step system for ... getting things done. The key to it all is getting stuff out of your head and onto paper or into a digital device of some kind. This frees up room for ideas. It's a process similar to dumping unnecessary data from your computer, de-fragging the hard drive.

 

After presenting a plethora of detail for over 200 pages, he alerts us to the real key to success using his system: the weekly review.

 

He mentions that he has clients who are CEO's of huge corporations who manage to find 2 hours every week for a review of what they are doing. How can they find time for that... when we might blanch at the very idea of devoting that much time to contemplation?

 

Practice, practice, practice. This is the key to real change. I have developed and used my own system for decades now and can attest to the success of this formula - get it out of your head and onto paper or into cyberspace. Then review, briefly each day, but more formally and for a longer period - I take about an hour - every week.

 

Give it a try and see what happens!