Repetition is key for any area you wish to succeed in
Success in any area of life usually comes down to consistent repetition rather than constant moments of brilliance. Learn how small, manageable, and realistic actions repeated over time can help you improve without overwhelm or burnout.
MINDSETPRODUCTIVITY
2/22/20262 min read
The person who only shoots if they know they can score is being outperformed by the person who only shows up to shoot.
Repetition, or as Ed Sheeran puts it ‘Leaving the tap that runs dirty water on long enough for clean water to come out’, is key.
If you make 100 songs and only 12 of them are usable, that’s still an album. If you write 100 pieces and only 2 of them are usable, that’s still 2 pieces you can publish.
The 88 unusable songs, or 98 pieces, won’t matter if you’ve achieved your goal. This is because success isn’t measured (or watched) by how many failures you’ve had, but rather by how many times you’ve succeeded—a thousand failures are made irrelevant by a single win.
In doing this myself, solely focusing on just showing up to write, make music, workout, etc., as opposed to only doing so if I could produce results had me progressing way more than I ever could by only showing up on the good days. And whilst the output wasn’t as good as it could’ve been, the results from showing up on the bad days had added up over time and were complemented further by the good days.
Now, this is not to say that results aren’t important, (which they are, and goes without saying), but having results at the forefront of your mind means that when results inevitably lack—especially during the beginning stages of trying to get good at anything—motivation and discipline take a nosedive as the thing you measure your success against is not consistently present. This severely hinders progress and can make it hard to start back up again.
Switching to a repetition mindset means that you solely count your wins on whether you showed up or not. This is a lot more realistic and sustainable given the simple act of ‘showing up’ is majorly within your control, and not heavily reliant on external factors as results tend to be. When you show up, anything beyond that—such as results—simply becomes a bonus.
A result oriented mindset will also have you feeling as though you have to build the entire house straight away. Whereas a repetition mindset solely focuses on laying the bricks you can.
A mantra I like to use in these situations is to tell myself that ‘the only thing that matters is that you’re doing it’.
This also brings up the fact that you should opt for consistency over intensity. For example, in the space of a month, 20 good workouts will yield much better results as opposed to 5 highly intense ones carried out inside the same week.
Now all of this is not to say that you can just keep doing the same thing over and over and improve. You still need to make sure that you’re constantly reviewing your progress to ensure you’re on the right trajectory (Because as they say, practice makes permanent). And so, doing this will help prevent any bad habits from forming.
Given the above, it’s also worth noting that even things such as reviewing your progress, identifying areas for improvement, fixing mistakes, learning, receiving feedback, etc., all count towards your repetitions for improving in that particular area. Essentially, anything that moves you forward in your chosen area to improve counts as a brick laid.
Think long term: Repetition over results. Consistency over intensity. Progress over perfection.
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