At the end of March 2012, I set a goal to practice 10 hours per week. For the week ending 6/2/12, I practiced for 7 hours. This is the closest I have come to the 10 hour goal so far. For tracking, I am using calendar weeks. The lowest number of hours for a week, occurred when I had Shingles.
A couple of weeks after setting the goal, I read a post on Jon Acuff’s blog about practicing your dream more than you promote it. He suggests that we practice 10 hours for every 1 hour of promotion. It was a great reminder of how important practice is when it comes to reaching our goals/dreams.
My blog could be categorized as promotion, since the idea of the blog is to share about my progress and experiences of becoming an organist (any other random things of my life). Maybe someday I will also become a writer although I suppose that am I writer since I am writing this blog! For now though, I want my ratio of organ practice to blog writing to be about 10:1.
I’ve wondered how much better my organ playing would be now, if I had set a specific practice goal early on.
What goals do you need to set?
Heidi Bender writes about her experiences of learning to play the organ. She started on the adventure in 2009.
She also writes on her website Tons of Thanks, which helps people write thank-you notes. Heidi is also a cat lady who writes at The Joy of Cats.
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First, let me applaud you for tackling the organ! I struggle enough with piano and guitar, which only involves my hands. I can’t imagine pulling my FEET into the mix as well. You go, girl.
I need to practice guitar more. I am starting to song write, and I would like my skills to be better so I can write better songs.
Hi Jamie,
Thank you for visiting my blog!
Heidi