When does Practice Makes Perfect?
Does it? Does practice makes perfect?
Practice makes perfect. Most people would have probably heard this saying many times over their lifetime.
Practice makes perfect gets used quite a lot, particularly when we are having trouble nailing a new skill or talent.
But what does it really mean?
Breaking the saying down word by word gives us a better understanding of the saying: practice makes perfect
Practice
There are many interpretations of practice; I like this by Annie Bosler and Don Greene’s Ted Talk
“Practice is the repetition of an action with the goal of improvement.”.
Make
The Collins Dictionary explains it this way
“to bring into being by shaping, changing, or combining materials, ideas, etc; form or fashion;”
The word we would be most interested in is changing.
Perfect
As interpreted by Oxford Languages
“make (something) completely free from faults or defects; make as good as possible.”
So in effect, “practice makes perfect” translates
Repeating an action over and over to create change to make the action as good as possible
Or we could say
Repeating an action over and over to create change to make the action completely free from faults or defects.
Personally I prefer the first..
Most people would agree that in human terms, we can’t become free from faults or defects.
Otherwise, that would mean we are perfect.
I said most people… I know there are people out there who think otherwise of themselves.
Enough said.
Arguably, the phrase Practice Makes Perfect means repeating an action to improve; the more you do it the better you will become.
Claire Tueller a pianist, in her TED talk, Perfect Practice Makes Perfect.
How can you practice something perfectly, as you wouldn’t need to practice as you are already perfect?
You could replace the first perfect with effective.
However, putting that to one side, Claire’s take on it was “Strive for the highest level of excellence that we each can possibly achieve.”
Similar.
Additionally, Claire’s formula to achieve the highest excellence was
- Consistency: Show up every day. Put the time aside to allow you to practice.
- Evaluation: Review constantly. Am I doing it right? Form when exercising
- Repetition: Doing the reps. Trains your instinct to do it naturally.
Like compound interest, doing the reps builds sweat equity, revealing itself in the future. Bigger muscles, nailing the moves or learning to write… posting and posting becomes an article; and another article becomes a best-selling book
In most cases, whatever you are trying to achieve will need some sort of guidance.
Either watching hundreds of YouTube videos or engaging a professional teacher to help you achieve what you’re aiming for.
Like a singer who is trying to improve their upper range will need instruction on the proper breathing techniques using their lungs effectively
Practice is the main word.
All teams have a coach or a nominated leader who takes control of training or match day.
The aim of the coach is to improve skills and amongst other things set plays.
I remember my days playing soccer; we would be drilled in each training season on one skill deemed by the coach necessary for the team.
One night we were in pairs, taking turns to throw the ball at waist height past the other player.
The other player was to bring down the ball with his foot depending on which side the ball had been thrown. Control the ball to the ground and take off just a few steps.
Rinse and repeat over and over again and again.
In the first game after this drill session, the opposition had a throw-in and I was trying to close down the angle to another one of their players.
An opposition player went to take the throw-in.
The ball came out of his hands… You guessed it, right at waist height, just going past my right side.
Instinctively, I raised my right foot, controlled the ball to the ground, and took off.
Just like in training, however, this time I kept on going several steps and then played a beautiful through ball (if I do say so myself) to the striker.
Disappointingly, no goal was scored.
But it does show how practice makes perfect. How repetition drills down and trains your instinct to do it naturally.
Does practice make perfect? I would say “Effective practice makes us perform better.”
- Certified Ikigai Coach – Passionate about guiding people to their purpose
- Author of Ikigai: Purpose Filled Life ikigaipurposefilledlife.com
- Founder of Modern Ikigai, inspiring modern living through Ikigai
