What are you good at? Is there something that you consider yourself pretty adapt at? Have you ever wondered why? There is a reason, and it’s actually pretty interesting and probably much simpler that you would think.  What’s more, have you ever wondered why practicing something helps you get better?… Probably not… or maybe you’ve wondered why practicing makes you better. If not that’s fine. This article will still be very interesting and if beneficial to you and your success in any venture or quest for achievement.

Have you ever noticed that sometimes we can try and learn something and it just clicks and other times we try and we just can’t seem to get it right. It’s almost like chemistry between people, it’s there or it isn’t. Right?! Well not exactly, human chemistry is really complicated and I wouldn’t try to tackle that challenge with a simple article. But fortunately, our connection learning something well is a lot simpler than that, at least on the surface anyway.  Don’t worry, the surface is all we need to understand for now.

The reason some of us can pick up a basketball, dribble around and take a couple shots and begin to playing like a champ, is the same reason someone else -who sucks at basketball can sing really well with very little practice.

That reason is hidden in that “connection”. When we try and learn, practice or get good at something new, our success depends on two things;

If we like it.

and

If we believe we can do it well.

So often we try and learn something new or get good at something for the wrong reasons. We might want to impress someone, or we think it will get us farther in some environment and we never stop to notice that we don’t really even like it that much. We have all been there! Contrast that to the time you learned something new or started practicing something and it worked! You were able to pick it up, not only that but you picked it up quick, meanwhile that other things is still sitting on your desk waiting for you to fruitlessly practice it again.

Now, I’m not saying that you should drop something just because you just can’ t seem to get it. No, I know that there are things that we really do want to learn or get good at but we just aren’t getting any better no matter how much we practice. There is a reason for that too. This is a lot harder to overcome and in fact requires it’s own course to master. It’s because, deep down you don’t believe you, either can’t do it or your not worthy of it. Our self-image will dictate the outcome of our success. It controls every aspect of your practice, your sub-conscious thoughts, and attitude toward the new skill. You might me thinking that, that not you, you have your stuff together. Well, odds are, you don’t. Most people in today’s society don’t have a clue how powerful and the amount of influence our self-image has on us.

Here’s the deal behind why practice with the proper mindset improves our success at the skill. Let’s go back to basketball for the example. Your mind is just like a computer except you don’t really get to choose the things that it logs into the database. Most things are logged based on the emotional connection with the event in front of you. So naturally when your practicing basketball you get happy when you make a basket, right?! Well your mind associates that with good and logs it into your memory. And when you miss, it automatically tries to discard it. That’s how we get better, every time we make the basket our mind is making a road map to success with more and more detail each time we succeed. The problem is when we let the missed shot get into our head when our mind is trying to discard it. We “psych ourselves out”, in the most accurate sense of the phrase. We tend to dwell on the negative when deep down we don’t think we can do it anyway. Every missed shot is just a reassurance.

Overcoming this is a hard thing to do, especially the self-image part. Other it will be much easier if we stick to the stuff we really like and connect with. But when you must learn something new that doesn’t seem to be clicking, you can do things like make sure that you are in a happy, positive mood when you try it. This article has some good tips for some Mood Lifters. You can also stay deliberate with your thoughts and conscious of the sneaky thoughts that try and cloud your judgment. Work on your self-image! This is something, in of itself that will change your whole life for the better.

You are capable of so much and can achieve feets that you never thought possible. Got out and get them!