Fast Piano Lessons Blog

You don’t have to practice a huge amount to see fast results. If you look back over a whole week you’ll be amazed at what you’ve learned. But just like at the gym, don’t measure muscles each day after you work out… you won’t see results. Measure your weight or muscles every couple weeks. (Same with piano - measure your progress on songs every couple weeks).

The goal is to build a strong habit, there is a spanish proverb that says habits start off like cobwebs and grow into cables. *The Power Of Less - Page 147. You want to create good practice habits… so here are some guidelines I’ve learned from reading a great book called The Power of Less: The Fine Art of Limiting Yourself to the Essential…in Business and in Life

Start small and easy. focus only on building one habit for 30 days. if you stop get back on. make your habit the most important thing for that day. don’t schedule it at a time that will have other commitments encroaching on it. evenings are bad because you’ll cancel your practice time for social engagements. you want to build a habit of practicing, not build a habit of NOT practicing.

How to apply this:

I’ve added a picture of my fridge below. It has my practice goal on it with 30 circles. Each day I practice enough to meet my goal, I fill in one of the 30 circles. As soon as the whole page is filled up I’m buying myself a reward! Filling in the circles is a lot of incentive in itself, but to complete the entire page of 30 really helps give me the initial push I need to build a new habit of practicing… or whatever I want to make a habit of in my life. My previous goal was for exercise.

So its a little more than half way through February. A great time to check in on the new years resolutions that you wrote down and see how you’re doing with them. Wait.. you didn’t write them down?!? Thats step #1! Do it right now. This applies to everything, not just piano.

One of my goals is to practice piano more so I changed my desktop background to just remind me of my practice goal. I’ve made one for you right here that says "10 minutes a day, 3 days a week"

1. Right click on the picture
2. Select "SET AS DESKTOP BACKGROUND"
3. Leave it on your computer until you successfully complete the goal.
4. Then increase the goal by one day, or 5 minutes at a time per week.

The important thing is to practice just a little bit each day…start off with something simple that you can do for 3 days a week 5 minutes a day… add a little more time each week until you get to a solid practice goal like 15-30min/day 5 days a week.

Don’t set your initial goal too high… Its much harder to maintain practicing or exercising for an hour a day if you’re coming from a cold start of not practicing at all. You have to train your mind and body to get used to the new routine first.