When I was growing up my parents sent me to have piano lessons. I love that I can play piano; it remains one of my favourite things to do. However, there were occasions during the early years of my lessons when the last thing I wanted to do was practice. Playing the same scales over and over until I mastered them and repeating the same line of a piano piece until all the mistakes were ironed out sometimes took hours. But the old saying goes “Practice makes perfect”.
If at first you don’t succeed…
Time has flown and now I’m the parent listening to my own daughter practice at the piano. It brings back many memories but I’ve noticed that unless she is playing the music as it is written, with all the right notes and the right timing, she doesn’t improve. If the mistakes aren’t pointed out and corrected, they stay the same and with time become very difficult to unlearn. My dad used to point this out to me and told me practice doesn’t always make perfect, but it will make permanent.
Work smarter, not harder
There is a well-known quote, sometimes attributed to Einstein, that says,
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”
It’s amazing how easy it is to get into the habit of repeating the same thing over and over and believing that because of the amount of hours and work that have been sown, we will be rewarded based on sheer effort. We repeat the same patterns in our relationships or at work and look for situations to improve, but we end up with the same results no matter how hard we try or wish that things were different. If we are continually cutting corners in our studies or in our work, we will reap shallow and unstable results based on happy coincidence rather than intentional focus and diligence. If we are dishonest in our relationships, even if our lies are to avoid hurting someone’s feelings, the result will always be distrust, and a breakdown in trust is very hard to overcome.
Reap what you sow
The bible says in book of Proverbs:
“Good planning and hard work lead to prosperity, but hasty shortcuts lead to poverty.”
Another passage of scripture tells us that what we sow is what we will reap. The key to getting the outcome you are looking for is to go back to the beginning and makes sure that the habits you are practicing will lead to the results that you seek. If you find yourself repeatedly making the same mistakes or having the same arguments and problems creep up in your relationships, it’s very possible that the things you are practicing aren’t going to lead to perfection but they are becoming permanent through repetition.
It’s not always easy to know how to change the way we live, sow better seeds in our lives, and ultimately reap better results, but the Bible tells us how we can start over and become like a new person. If you would like to know more, please click on the link below.