What Do You Practice?

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I won’t lie: Some days, this blog chafes.

I don’t have any ideas. The will to write left. I’m tired. My brain hurts.

Endless reasons.

And yet.

I’ve planned to write a post every other day. And I haven’t missed a single scheduled post so far this year. Partly, I credit my stubbornness about achieving set goals. Partly, I’ve seen the results so far and fear, if I fall off the wagon, I’ll revert back to my preblog state.

Researchers have written reams about how much practice a person needs to become an expert. Aphorisms abound that practice outweighs talent when it comes to success. The accuracy of these lines of thought aside, without focusing your energies, you’ll never do what you dream.

Where we choose to spend our time and how we choose to cultivate our interests make all the difference to our successes (or lack of successes).

Yet few of us work at a given discipline with enough dogged energy—set schedules, hours of practice, step-wise goals for improvement—to see any results.

After nearly eighteen months of posting a new essay on this blog almost every other day, I see them.

I have more comfort with the writing process—its joys and its frustrations. Through consistent work, the writing muscle has grown stronger, faster, more defined—and more definite.

So I keep at it. Even when it chafes.

What do you practice?