I was feeling pretty down about this time last week. I was putting off practicing piano all week, and then trying to make up for it with a marathon practice session the night before my lesson. It was enough to keep from embarassing myself in front of my tutor, but that’s about it; I wasn’t making any progress to speak of.
I considered that maybe piano wasn’t for me, that if I really wanted to do it, I’d just do it. I also considered that it won’t be fun to play piano until I’m good at it, and I won’t be good until I do a lot of unfun practice.
I mentioned these ideas to my friend Melodie, who suggested that I try to practice for ten minutes a day. Sage advice, it turns out. It’s always daunting to think about playing for 30 minutes or more, but I’ve had no trouble getting motivated to sit down for ten minutes.
I’ve applied the same principle to meditation, something I’ve wanted to do for years, but was unable to start for whatever reason. So far so good: I’ve practiced piano and done some basic meditation every day for the last week.