Life is Repetitive-Deal With It!!!
Life is Repetitive By David Wygant
I do yoga once or twice a week with a private yoga instructor – yeah, that’s right, I’m very LA. I go to a yoga studio a few days a week and I have a private instructor the rest of the time.
Last Night during yoga, my yoga instructor Olivia and I were talking. We were talking about yoga and just life in general. I’ve been doing yoga for about two years now, and I have to tell you – before I started yoga I had hamstrings that were about as flexible as the 405. I had shoulders that if you pinned me back a certain way, not only would they not touch the ground – they would scream their way back up in the other direction.
After practicing yoga for a couple of years, each day my hamstring moves a little bit more. Each time I do yoga, my shoulders touch the ground a little bit more. Every day I get a little bit further in my practice.
Yoga is one of the most repetitive things in the world. You can do downward dog 14 times in a class – triangle pose eight times in a class – it’s not the most exciting thing in the world. But what it does is teach you that life is extremely repetitive.
Everything you do in life takes practice every single day. When Peyton Manning fades back to pass to Marvin Harrison, who then scores a touchdown in the corner of the in zone, it’s something they have practiced thousands of times before. Every time Johan Santana throws a strike – this is something he’s been practicing every day of his life to get better and better.
But how come when it comes down to meeting women, men will try one thing one time, and never do it again? How come when women go out and look at a man and smile, and the man doesn’t smile back, they say, “this doesn’t work! I’m never going to do this again.”
It seems like in dating and meeting the opposite sex, people don’t become repetitive. They tend to think that something is going to work once – and if it doesn’t, they’ll never do it again.
I was speaking at a seminar a couple of weeks ago and I told everybody that if they went out and observed everything in their life for five days, they’d be able to come up with their own openers to talk to people. One guy asked me if he had to do it for five days, and I responded, “no, you should be doing this every day of your life! Let’s start with five days, and work our way forward.”
Everything you do is repetitive. To become great at any job, you need to do the same things everyday. In order to become a major league pitcher, you need to throw the ball over and over again. In order to become a great lover, you need a lot of sexual practice. In order to become a great writer – like I am! – you need to write every single day (I hope you caught that joke). In order to cut hair well, you need to cut hair every single day.
You need to practice to become great at everything you do. If that’s true, then how come some of you get all of this great advice about how to meet women or men but you’re not out there doing this every single day?
Why do you expect to break the way life happens? In order to become great at something, you need to practice every single day.
Have you been practicing meeting people every single day? Or do you keep trying things in small spurts, and then keep buying other books to see whether or not you’ll finally find the magic pill?
If you meet women, go out there and talk to them everyday. If you want to meet men, do the same exact thing.
Stop complaining, start doing and realize that you cannot break the cycle of life. Practice, and you will be good at it.
May 8th, 2008 at 8:25 pm
DW- I had an eye-opener a number of years ago when I began my studies in the martial arts. It was, as you described, and I’ll-never-be-able-to-do-this turned look-how-far-I’ve-come moment and it completely changed my outlook on everything.
So yes, repetition is vital!! But bear in mind the things DW says; because it’s not practice that makes perfect. You can practice a thousand times the wrong way and it won’t be perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect.
May 9th, 2008 at 12:06 am
Coby, That reminds me of the expression; “Five years’ experience, or one year’s experience five times.”
Being attuned enough to see the improvement makes a big difference. A perfectionist who sees all or nothing will only see steady failure; this will end up mitigating most of their potential for improvement. (How long would you stick with yoga if you saw no improvement or results?)
What might help? Seeing the baby steps in the iterations. “Hey I spoke with someone today I would not have last week!” Realizing perfection isn’t required. “I made ‘that’ comment, and the conversation didn’t end.” And learning from experience. “Maybe ‘that’ didn’t end the conversation, but next time I’ll try ____.” or even; “Now I know never to say ‘that’ again.”
Some people just dive right in, not considering the process required to become successful, they “just do it”… Others take a more intellectual/cautious approach. In moderation the added reflection may accelerate learning, or in excess it may become overwhelming/paralyzing.
- Well at least it sounds good as I’m typing.
A different question: “What is motivating?”
- Goodnight all
May 9th, 2008 at 4:54 am
Ihave been up since 2AM 2 get 2 the airport & find Half the plane has been bumped due to overbooking:( 3 hours later I will leave. I now practice great patience & aproaches? Mmm not interested at this time. WOW am I sleepy! LOL
May 9th, 2008 at 11:19 am
Joan:
Getting bumps and vouchers from the airlines is very welcome in my book! I usually book my plane tickets and on purpose try to book ones that increase bumpability:-) That assumes you have a flexible schedule of course but for $300 or $400 vouchers and lots more I am game:-) Then again, one of my hobbies is mileage running, always upgraded to 1st class of course:-)
June 2nd, 2008 at 12:42 am
Hey Ken great comment there…
I am a perfectionist who takes the intellectual/cautious approach and it ends up becoming overwhelming.
Not just meeting women but many things in life.
Any way to kill or at least reduce my perfectionism?
June 2nd, 2008 at 2:09 pm
Hey Andy,
I’m no expert, but if you don’t mind the blind leading the blind, that doesn’t stop me from throwing some darts in the dark…
I think whether someone is primary thinking or doing they should embrace who the are, and supplement with a little of the other. (Similar to a little vitamin for the foods that aren’t part of your diet.)
Thinking/reflection helps maximize what can be learned from each experience, yet experiences are still needed… (Someone who’s only into experience might benefit from a little reflection…)
One thing that I’ve come across in multiple contexts is learning to view life like a game; have fun and enjoy…
Think about playing games. you win some, you loose some. It’s great when you just enjoy playing… What games do you like… are you perfect at them? Have fun playing at different skill levels, some you almost know you’ll win, others you almost know you’ll loose… If you know the outcome that’s one less thing on your mind…
I’m learning to see/appreciate the beauty in the imperfect. What is perfection? quality? (What is quality?) efficiency? aesthetics? I’ve found that generally “perfection” is the art of optimizing some some parameters at the expense of others. Which parameters are you sacrificing in your search for perfection?
Ken E.