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Developing Good Habits and Practices

Paul Klee, In the Current Six Thresholds (1929)

Good habits and practices are important to living in good order. Doing good things haphazardly or inconsistently does not generate good order.

  • Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going. [attributed to Jim Ryun]
  • Winning is not a sometime thing; it’s an all the time thing. You don’t win once in a while… you don’t do things right once in a while… you do them right all the time. Winning is habit. [Vince Lombardi]
  • Character is simply habit long continued. [attributed to Plutarch]

The brain processes everything we experience and all we do. People who are skilled in any field usually have acquired habits and practices that facilitate their competence.

“The modern concept of habit was first clearly laid out by the psychologist William James in the late 19th century. He described habit as a routine, behavior, or even cognitive process that starts spontaneously but is repeated automatically as a result of prior experience.” “Making habits is facilitated by repetition, reinforcement, disengagement of goal-directed processes, and stable contexts.” “. . . habits can occur in graded strength, compete with other strategies for control over behavior, are controlled in part moment-to-moment as they occur, and incorporate changes in neural activity across multiple timescales and brain circuits.”

“Habit formation transcends merely changing behaviors; it’s a multifaceted journey encompassing neurobiology, psychology, and the environment.” For example, musicians rehearse because the repetitive act of playing the music over and over writes information on the brain. As the musician rehearses, the mind evaluates the quality of the performance. If the musician is dissatisfied, she may stop to rehearse the section again. Commonly, musicians will rehearse a few troublesome bars or even a few notes until they master them. As this occurs, the brain records and stores the information. Once the musician arrives at a satisfactory level of performance, she may repeat the section many times to establish the pattern more firmly in the brain, which is creating connections that will facilitate the ease of performance and the likelihood of its success. Most researchers hold that “responding can be controlled by two behavioral systems, one goal-directed that encodes the outcome of an action, and one habitual that reinforces the response strength of the same action”; others make a case that “the transition of goal-directed actions to habits is caused by a change in a single network structure”.

“Habits contribute to improving action performance because they release consciousness from having to focus on immediate goals, and allow all cognitive resources to focus instead on higher goals.” We see this in virtually every field of endeavor. When a basketball player mimics the motion of his free throw, perhaps several time, before he takes it, he is reinforcing the patterns of motion he has learned, which are stored in his organic brain. Generally, we trust experienced surgeons more than inexperienced surgeons. Teachers gain an assurance after sufficient time in the classroom. Each of two equally experienced chefs usually will out-cook the other in their respective specialty cuisines. A dairy farmer who fails to milk the cows at an established time will find that he has unhappy and unproductive cows.

Thus, habits and practices are no mere arbitrary devices. They reflect how our brains function to facilitate our development. Good habits and practices constitute an indispensable part of the order that is essential to achieving competence and excellence.

Real

True Narratives

Technical and Analytical Readings

Habits and theories of mind:

Self-help books

Photographs

Documentary and Educational Films

Imaginary

Fictional Narratives

Novels:

Poetry

Music: Composers, artists, and major works

In music, an étude is a study. Most etudes are composed for students to acquaint them with the rigors of their instrument. However, a few composers have left behind études, mostly for solo piano, that far exceed the quality of works for student performance. They offer the performer opportunities to master the intricacies and challenges of the chosen instrument but quite beyond that, they offer the listener many rewards. Among the finest works in this genre are Chopin’s etudes. Frédéric Chopin wrote two sets of twelve Études, or studies (approx. 60’), for solo piano, plus a smaller set of three “Nouvelles Études”. Top recorded performances of Opp. 10 and 25 are by Alfred Cortot in 1933-1934, Paul Badura-Skoda in 1956, Vladimir Ashkenazy in 1959-1960, Maurizio Pollini in 1960, György Cziffra in 1962, Dinorah Varsi in 1981, Juana Zayas in 1983 ***, Earl Wild in 1992, Yuki Matsuzawa in 1996, Véronique Bonnecaze in 1999, Murray Perahia in 2001, Valentina Lisitsa in 2014, and Yunchan Lim in 2024. Louis Lortie, Zlata Chochieva, and Alessandro Deljavan have recorded all three sets.

Other Études (studies):

French composer Charles-Valentin Alkan wrote étude cycles in three ways.

In collaboration with Matthew Shipp and others, Ivo Perelman has produced a set of albums modeled on his musical interests and practices:

Other albums:

Music: songs and other short pieces

Visual Arts

Film and Stage