Earlier book by Crystal Paine "Say Goodbye to Survival Mode"

I feel fortunate in that I have not been in "Survival Mode" in a very long time.  But what I do love about this book are the exercises at the end of the chapters.  My favorite was to take 15 minutes and make a list of all the good habits you want to develop in your life and the bad habits you want to reverse.  

I expected that I would have some sort of overwhelming list of items.  But I was wrong.  Instead, my list ended up with 14 habits and it took at least an hour to come up with that many. I guess that I expected to have at least 25 -30 since I can manage to scold myself about so many things.

What did I learn from this?  I learned that, as Crystal says, keep it simple (you don't have to be perfect) and stay focused. 

"Making short-term sacrifices in order to accomplish long-term goals can be very rewarding - especially if you're willing to stick with it when the going gets tough."

I am in the process of REALLY learning how to play the guitar.  I decided to take a class at the local community college - which ended up as a private lesson one day per week.  The first class was painful.  I hadn't played in awhile and was very self conscious about playing in front of someone, especially an instructor.  

She gave me some homework and the next week, I showed incredible improvement.  The third class was embarrassing.  I had not improved much over the previous week and reverted to that self-conscious, self-depreciating state of the first class.  I thought that it was because I had not practiced enough.

I entered the forth lesson confused.  I had practiced every day and yet I had very little improvement.  This lesson ended up involving more talking and less playing.  I learned that I was reinforcing my mistakes by the way I was practicing.  I needed to slow down, notice where I am making the same mistake and make a focused effort on that area until I reinforce the correct fingering.  

My enthusiasm is out the roof now and I enjoy practicing, knowing that if I stick with it, I am going to meet my goals.  My lesson this week taught me that the practice is starting to pay off and my level of playing is moving forward.  I was also pushed again out of my comfort zone by her insistence that I sing the guitar part of a new song.  I was surprised that not only am I getting over my shyness of singing in public but was also able to read music with my voice as the instrument (not something I thought that I could do).

And I know that I can approach my list of 14 habits the same way.  One at a time, with focus and effort, consistently improving, even when the process is slow.  Thank you Crystal for sharing.