And hello to you and welcome to the Richard Nichols podcast the personal development

podcast series that's here to help inspire educate and motivate you to be the best you can be.
I'm psychotherapist Rich Nichols and this is episode 165. It's titled practice doesn't always
make perfect and if you already. Will stop the show. Hello you beautiful people and
welcome to January a new year with new ideas new prospects and new you if you like what
I would say is what was wrong with the old you. Was there something inherently
unpleasant about the 2018 you that the 2019 you can leave behind it maybe we don't really
need a new and maybe not even an improved you just still you but a slightly different you
long term listeners would have already heard me go on about New Year's resolutions not
always being a good idea they do help some but on the whole New Year's resolutions are
famous for being just a temporary idea a January fad often people will say to me things like
I bet you'll be busy at work in January then all the New Year's resolutions and yes January
do start off quite busy but that's because I've had two weeks off probably until my existing
clients are then crammed into the same weeks although I do get new clients who are
inspired by the line in this under the new year it's nothing like February when all those that
have tried to make some changes are a month in and can feel themselves giving up and
need help. And it raises questions doesn't it. Because if the changes you make are
something you actually want then why would we feel like giving up. That's what we look at
when someone comes in for private therapy. We need to look we have to look at what
motivates us what drives us the direction of it. Are we moving away from something or
towards something else or even away from pain. Are we moving away from pain and
towards pleasure. Or is it just away from pain or is it just towards pleasure. Everyone's
different but one factor that's the same for everybody I think is patience because it takes a
long time for something to become a habit. Often loads of daft experiments on myself over
the years to see how long it takes for something to feel automatic or natural cleaning my
teeth with my left hand instead of my right cutting sugar out of my tea and coffee taking
milk. A tea and coffee. Learning to like things that my wife likes to eat. But I've never been
particularly first with cheese prawns coleslaw and I did a test with some bananas which I've
already spoken about in the podcast in the past I'm sure I'll the data did a whole episode all
about bananas or the bizarrely that that's the that's in the lists and where a good listener that
once got fun and all this repetition is a it's a pain in the arse. Pardon me biggest for
something to become so natural that it takes no effort to make the choice then it needs a lot
of repetition. And with me it tends to be daily repetition for somewhere between a month
and six weeks. Now you may be sooner yours might be less but it may take longer. But
what seems to make a huge influence with people is their original intention in the first
place. When someone wants to lose weight they often see the changes they need to make to
make it happen as a temporary change they intend to start on a diet for a few months until
they where they want to be and then they don't need to go on a diet anymore. Now two
problems here. Firstly although do afterwards go back to what they were eating before the
diet which led them to gain the weight in the first place and then that is yo yo dieting for the
whole bloomin life. And secondly because they knew it was only temporary anyway. The
Healthy Choices never feel like a new habit. They don't stick. Even after a month or six
weeks or three months it's still hard work and that's what attracts them to me because I
specialize in hypnosis which helps to speed up the process of making something feel
natural or automatic and I'm so often reminded of the study that a man called Gary
McPherson I think he pronounced it MC fierce and could have been MacPherson but I
think it was McPherson. However Gary did this in the late 1990s and Gary was a professor
at the University of New South Wales and had a passion for music so he set out to
investigate why some children when they were learning an instrument could progressed
quite quickly and others couldn't. So he did a nine month study of 133 randomly selected
children who were all about age 8. There were either 7 8 or 9. They're all about to start to
learn an instrument at school and the study even started before the kid had even chosen
their instrument started that that's when they started videotaping them interviews and things
like that. He wanted to find out what the magic ingredients were. Get all of these kids
learning an instrument see which ones do well and then figure out of those that do well.
What were they all doing differently. What did they all have in common with each other
but not with the ones that didn't do well. Was it related to their whole life their IQ points.
Was it simply how often they practiced all the time of day that they practiced or anything
like that and he had loads of really detailed interviews and videotapes of them practicing to
plow through. And after nine months it got a lot of data but that didn't seem to be any
correlation between the children that showed great musical aptitude with anything else at
all. Those successful kids they're all accused could all be different their math skills even
their sense of rhythm. The parents income could all be different. They're bringing their
anxieties not even how often they practiced. They were all different. There was no
correlation with anything at all. Apart from one thing right before that even started their
first lesson. They were all asked how long they thought they'd be playing their instrument
for you know it would be would it be for a month. Would it be for a term a year would it be
for the rest of your life. Their answers could be broken down into three different time
frames. They were classed as having either short term commitment medium term
commitment and long term commitment and there was the correlation because those that
were in the long term commitment group outperformed the short term group in musical
aptitude by 400 percent musical aptitude can be measured using what's called a Watkins
Farnham performance scale which with 90 minutes of daily practice had the short term
commitment. Kids scoring about nine the medium term committees scored 15 and the kids
that said they'd play forever. Even before that even had a single lesson scored 35. I went
through that a bit quick let me run those numbers past you again. Short term five medium
term 15 long term 35. A completely different musical ability compared to the half hearted
short term kids. Yet they all put in an hour and a half per day of practice so actually
practice doesn't necessarily mean a better outcome. It does make a big difference though
because even the long term commitment kids who only had the opportunity to do 20
minutes of practice each day they only scored about 13 which is still higher than the short
term commitment children who did 90 minutes so practice doesn't make perfect unless
you've got a long term commitment to doing something. And this applies to everything that
we're learning whether it's the guitar or its learning to make healthy food choices or
wanting to make it second nature to choose to walk rather than drive or whatever an
expectation of it being a temporary thing means that the brain doesn't let it become a habit.
It's probably inefficient. Why would it. We're not gonna do this forever why make it state.
What the brain does. But in order for something to feel appropriate to be a part of your life
forever it needs to be something that's sustainable and a diet won't do that. Going to the
gym every morning before work might not do that. It might be sustainable for some but if
you need a middle ground between doing too little exercise and doing too much an amount
that you can integrate into your life forever then in a month or so's time it will feel natural
to you. That's just how the brain works. Given the right circumstances practice does make
perfect. If you wanna learn to play the guitar you practice every day probably an hour a day
and you know that you can't do it yet you're already at the beginning so you get a book start
at page 1 which is usually how to play Kumbayah. There's only three chords D E and A I
did this and you practice and practice and practice until you've got those three chords
perfect and then you move on to Auld Lang zine. And if you like zone if you can it is it
true. That's the next page of the book. If you keep active in the same way moving up as you
improve then within a year you'll have all the muscle memory you need to play almost any
chord without thinking about it. It's muscle memory. That's what we call it isn't it muscle
memory. Yet truly our muscles don't really have any memories to they it's our brain that
sends the signals to our muscles. Muscles are as useful as a puppet is without its strings. So
what does muscle memory mean then to me it's about making something unconscious. The
final stage of competence the final stage of learning. It's commonly said that there are four
stages of competence one unconscious incompetence you're so out of touch with the
problem you don't even know that you can't do it yet to conscious incompetence.

Now you know that you can't do it. That's where most people probably begin with three
conscious competence. You now know how to do it. It just takes a lot of conscious effort.
And then for unconscious competence you can do it and you don't even need to think about
it anymore. It's become second nature to you.

And this process of how the brain does this can be applied to probably anything whether it's
learning to play Kumbayah old on her learning to leave food on your plate. Learning to see
the positive outcomes of a difficult situation learning to deal with emotion in a better way.
Learning not to self-harm
what my clients are ultimately looking for is to learn something new and unlearn something
old because if unwanted behavior is at stage 4 then it's outside of conscious awareness. The
signals in the brain are moved too quickly for the consciousness to have noticed and it's too
late they've already shoved in the extra chips that were on their plate. They've already taken
the escalator instead of the steps or they've already taken a Stanley blade into the bathroom
to slice away at their arm when the pain in their body is the only distraction they've got to
deal with a pain in the mind and people will say that they don't even know that they're
doing it.

So if someone gets angry and shouts and screams and throws ashtrays at the wall or
whatever and the other yet the only answer they've got to the question why didn't we do that
is because it felt right at the time. And the reason it feels right is because of familiarity
because that's what always happens. So it becomes a skill a habit. It's become unconscious
competence and to make a new behaviour unconscious takes the right combination of
repetition and attitude and that's going to be different for everyone so be careful with these
fad diets or sudden changes in lifestyle and find what will work for you not just now but
forever.

And if you need some help with that then find a therapist who specializes in solution
focused approaches like a hypnotherapist. Now some sessions that can help inspire you.
And if that seems like too great an investment in yourself. I get it if it is we tend to charge
around the same as it would cost for a woman to have a color cut and blow dry and
depending on where you live that's going to be anywhere between 50 quid and a hundred
quid per session which I know sounds like a lot but it's worth the investment because it
makes a great difference. Although there are plenty of free podcasts that can inspire and
help you too as well as low cost hypnosis downloads and things so there's no excuse well
before I go on to mention that I've been asked to take part in a Facebook livestream on
Friday January 11th at 10 a.m. It's on the Facebook page of a coach Emma Hillman at
Facebook dot com slash Eagle coach and we'll be talking about PTSD post-traumatic stress
disorder and how it can be treated if it's something you'd like to see. Don't worry if you
can't watch it life it'll be on her Facebook page to view forever anyway. But it's on Friday
the 11th at 10 a.m.. If you want to see it live by the way I mentioned this last month but it's
all systems go now so I'll mention it again. I'm making weekly episodes now just for paid
patrons of the podcast. It's seven dollars per month through patron who only work in U.S.
dollars. Bizarrely they don't do an international thing but Hayhoe the pretty populous I've
got no choice but to use them really because that's what everybody does. But on monitor
the value of the pound and I'll keep it at around the five pound mark which in the next
twelve months might end up only being about three dollars so high here. International funds
that might get a right bargain after Brexit so I'll keep my eye on it but they will also be if
anybody wants a one dollar donation level too because I've had some contact about some
emails from listeners that have said they want to support a monthly podcast but they don't
want anything in return other than what you're already getting for free the monthly one they
don't want weekly ones but they still want to give me money. So thank you. If you. You can
chuck me a dollar each month through patron and it really will be appreciated thank you
genuinely I'm not making that up it's appreciated but if you want more for more episodes
then it's gonna be around a fiver and what do you get for your five quid. I hear you ask
especially as that's much cheaper than it would be to see a therapist one to one or have your
hair colored and cut. Well I'm gonna be as generous as I can and give you whatever time
I've got but I'm definitely definitely 100 percent making an episode every Monday morning
for you. I'll also give you access to all my previous episodes so you'll instantly get an extra
60 70 episodes before we even start. Which is great for new listeners. Might have missed
out when I remove them from the public feed in years gone by and I'm gonna make some
meditation and specific hypnosis tracks as well just for you because there is so much
research that shows the benefits of doing that especially when the content is quite specific.
As I said earlier what hypnosis seems to do is speed up that learning process that I was
talking about earlier from stage 2 or 3 where you know what you've got to do but you just
either can't do it or you find it hard to do it. It moves you look to unconscious competence
where you can do it and it's natural. Just in closing your eyes getting comfy and tricking
your brain into thinking about something as if it's real even though you know it's a
daydream. I've said this a hundred times before so I know you know this but I'll say it a
hundred first. The brain doesn't know the difference between fact and fiction. If you think
about coughing it'll make you cough if you watch somebody hurt themselves. It'll make you
wince and by using that to our advantage you can trick your brain into acting as if you
always leave food on your plate as if you always make healthy choices you always handle
confrontations with your boss while or whatever it is that you'd like me to make for you
because if you let me know what personal development or mental health topics are
important to you I'll make sure that I make appropriate content for you. So become a patron
by following the links at Richard Nichols dot net. Or you can go straight to it. Picture on
dot com forward slash Richard Nichols. Let's make 2019 the line in the sand that moves
you on to being the best you can be. Speak to you again soon folks. But.