Seeking Practice Opportunities
The saying "Practice makes perfect" holds profound truth, especially when it comes to the deliberate and rewarding effort of self-improvement. Seeing oneself as a "work in progress", where we aim to enhance certain aspects of our personality while tempering others, perfectly encapsulates the essence of this adage. In therapy, I place great emphasis on the importance of actively seeking opportunities to practice. But why is practice so crucial? Often, we're acutely aware of our situations—knowing exactly what's happening, how, with whom, and even desiring change when things go awry. Despite this awareness, we remain trapped in detrimental habits, continuing on the same path even when we yearn for a different outcome.
The bad habits that spoil our personality can range from stubbornness, complaining, inconsistency, inflexibility, giving rude responses and the ease of saying no without even thinking about it, among many others. The good habits that enrich our personality can be patience, gratitude, appreciation, discipline, empathy, and cordiality. Both can be trained in everyday life and, indeed, "need" to be trained if one wishes to integrate what's lacking and discard what's excessive in oneself. It turns out that understanding what happens to us from the rational mind is not enough to change what we wish to modify. It is only through the continuous repetition of an alternative action over time that we can begin to loosen the "fixed" neural pathways responsible for leading us into undesirable behaviours. In their place, we methodically reforge new neural connections that align more closely with the person we aspire to become.
The Monastery of Everyday Life
We need to "seek practice opportunities" to shape our personality the way we want it. Where? In the most challenging monastery, that of everyday life, with those relationships that are hard for us, with those tasks we'd rather avoid, in those difficult conversations or dynamics. Thus, our day-to-day lives are the kiln where personality is baked, where it is shaped and modified as if it were clay.
Our day-to-day is the kiln where personality is baked, where it is shaped and modified as if it were clay.
What often happens when we try to embody a new behaviour is that our attention frequently drops, weakens, or becomes erratic. We forget that we promised ourselves we would change it. We get scattered among hundreds of stimuli and lose sight of the opportunity to do differently in the face of the same. Therefore, the most profitable way to start changing what we want to change is to take one trait or behaviour at a time. As if it were a personal laboratory, the strategy is to focus our observation on that characteristic we want to eradicate or integrate into our personality. Once we have centred our attention on "that" particular habit, what follows is to be attentive to detect the occasion to exercise it, with the main goal being to do something different in the face of the same.
In this state of awakened attention, we suddenly receive a proposal that we would reject without even listening to it, and our alert and directed consciousness detect a "practice opportunity." By exercising a titanic will, we can twist the tendency to always say a timid "yes" to what we would have said a resounding "no". Or we might find ourselves with the attention directed to unfold gratitude where there would have been an almost automatic complaint before.
Thus, for each different response, we deconstruct the rusted and old behaviours and reconstruct a more flexible and broader personality capable of responding differently according to the circumstances.
It is not at all easy to learn to manage ourselves, but it is a simple task that requires nothing more than the skill of fully committing to our process of self-transformation.
What is the Secret of Personal Alchemy?
The four steps that cannot be missing in this process are: "realizing," "focusing," "generating practice opportunities," and most importantly... repeat, repeat, repeat until the new becomes amalgamated and integrated into the repertoire of tools we have to make our way in life.
At first, we are "unconsciously clumsy". That is, we do not realize that a certain trait causes us problems. Then, we become "consciously clumsy". That means we "realize" that, but we cannot stop doing that behaviour, or we still can't do something differently. If we take one more step in our evolution, we devote ourselves to the task of becoming "consciously skilled" and, with all our strength, direct our attention to become competent in what is difficult for us. Finally, as a result of the work on oneself, it happens that we no longer need so much attention to hold the helm; we become "unconsciously skilled" in what was previously tremendously difficult. We have conquered that trait, and it now forms part of our baggage. It doesn't trigger by itself; we have achieved mastery through practice.
At first, we are unconsciously clumsy. Then, we become consciously clumsy. If we take one more step, we will manage to be consciously skilled until we finally become unconsciously skilled in whatever we set our minds to.
There are no magic formulas or recipes. Changing, advancing, transforming, and enriching ourselves is about taking our personality into our own hands and, like artisans, massaging it, moistening it, and shaping it with concrete actions. Otherwise, it dries up, stagnates, and becomes rigid in the same old habits and behaviours. The practice and repetition of the new refresh us and allow us to "taste" new flavours of the self.
This heroic work of self-realization allows us to align our evolution of consciousness with the concrete manifestation of who we choose to be in our daily lives. If we only "notice" but do nothing to change what is hindering us, all we will feel is guilt. Why? Because if consciousness is not followed by a concrete action that balances the dissonance, we feel internal incoherence. Coherence is only possible when we manage to embody the values that represent us today in our daily lives through the sustained practice of those attitudes and behaviours that beautify our being and allow us to develop.