You won’t get great at something if you only work on it when you feel like it.
Mastery requires a lot of “deliberate practice”. But if you wait until you “feel like it” to start doing the work, it will be difficult to invest the time and consistency needed to actually reach your potential.
Now, if you’re extremely talented already, you may be able to do fairly well without much practice — at least for a while. But you’ll only be a shadow of what you could be if you coupled raw talent with discipline over time.
We see this in athletics all the time. An athlete’s raw physical ability gets him quite far, but it’s the ones who couple talent and a disciplined work ethic that ultimately succeed at the highest levels.
Starting In Spite of Our Feelings
We all experience those days and times where we just “don’t feel like it.” We don’t “feel inspired,” or we’re not “in the mood.” But making the time we devote to practice conditional on how we _feel _is one surefire way to thwart our long term growth.
“I write when I’m inspired, and I see to it that I’m inspired at nine o’clock every morning.” –Peter De Vries
Professionals know that their job is to show up and put in the work, whether they feel like it or not. And that’s why they’re professionals — why they are great at what they do. They don’t wait for inspiration to strike. They put in the time and effort, knowing that feelings will only get them so far.
It Goes Both Ways
It’s also important to remember that how we feel can in turn be affected by what we choose to do. I may not feel “inspired” initially, but once I’ve get started doing what I know I need to do, sometimes those feelings will change.
I may not feel like working out, or doing those drills, or putting my pen to paper, but once I’ve started, sometimes I’ll experience the inspiration and flow that I was waiting for. But, even if I don’t, that doesn’t change the fact that practicing — putting in the time, doing the work — is still valuable in itself.
Becoming great at your given craft doesn’t happen by accident. Nor does it happen by waiting until you feel inspired to get started.