I am so happy to say that this is the final journal post for my 12 Months of Practicing 2019 project! If you haven’t seen my December video, you can check it out here: I give you all of my stats from the whole year, compare them with my stats from 2018, and celebrate the progress I’ve made. In this post, I’m going to expand more on what I’ve learned from doing the project as a whole, and share my goals for 2020 and beyond.
I have grown so much and improved so much from doing this project. I have become better at seeing my default perfectionistic mindset for what it is - a death trap. I have learned that my inner critical voice is illogical and should not be treated as an authority. I have learned how to use time efficiently, and that a less-than-optimal amount of practice time is infinitely better than no amount of practice time. I have learned how to set reasonable goals for myself.
I still need to work on consistency. I still need to work on not judging myself. I still need to work on finding a way to ensure that practicing remains a part of my daily life and identity even when I have gigs that make me feel exhausted and overwhelmed. I still need to learn how to make this a daily habit, though I am closer to this goal than ever before. I still need to learn how to keep going (in a healthy way) even if I am burned out. My goal is to be able to look back on this post in December 2020, read this paragraph, and think to myself, “Well, I’m better at some of those things now than I was back then!”
Ironically, I haven’t practiced for the last eight days (including today). I was determined to finally finish this project once and for all, and decided that I wasn’t allowed to practice until it was finished. The nice thing is, there was only one other time this year that I’ve gone longer without practicing: a nine-day stretch back in March 2020 when the pandemic really started to take hold in the U.S. Honestly, it hasn’t felt good not to touch my cello. I feel like it’s lonely, and wants to be played.
At the same time, I can tell that my mindset around practicing is different than it was a year ago because I’m not constantly feeling shame about it, or agonizing over it, or putting it off by watching TV and then feeling horrible at the end of the day when I realize I’ve done this for two weeks and I just remembered I have a concert I need to cram to prepare for. This time was totally different. I made a decision not to practice so that I could give myself this time without the weight of “I need to finish my 2019 project and 2019 ENDED FOUR MONTHS AGO!!!” on my shoulders any longer. It is a sacrifice I decided to make for myself. I also made a plan to keep myself accountable so that I would not end up procrastinating and dragging this out and suddenly find that I hadn’t practiced for almost the whole month. And tomorrow, I’m going to get back to it. It won’t feel great, but it will be okay. And then the day after that, I’ll do it again. And the next day. And the next. And again, and again, and again, and then maybe I’ll miss a day, but maybe not, and I’ll keep going regardless.
THE END.