The Cycle of Motivation — Meet the True Enemy of Hard Work

It is a nice, fine morning — and you are ready to get into another session with your piano. What once felt like a nightmare to perform now amounts to nothing but a breeze. Yet, when the piece is performed, it’s as if the devil himself has returned. As you speed through the piece, your hands can’t catch up. The result? You crash and burn, and the nightmare returns. The motivation returns to then improve the piece towards a smoother rehearsal, and as you begin to master it this time, the nightmare returns once again. In short, motivation is a cycle for humans, and only a constant motivation will result in perfection, which is not possible. However, there are things that can be done about it.

Let’s start with the infamous phrase — “Practice Makes Perfect”

Many people believe that the amount of time that they must work on something to master it is finite — a lot of practice must result in mastery. However this is not true, and it is a dangerous concept. One who believes in this concept will practice for a set amount of time, and then complain when they notice imperfections. The truth is, imperfections are unavoidable regardless of the time put into practice, and the only way to deal with them is to practice further — for infinity. It is a journey with no destination.

The above claims can be verified through my personal experiences.

This past week, I picked up a copy of sheet music for Yiruma’s “River Flows in You”. Maintaining a constant tempo was very dificult, as certain parts were easier than others. I sped up the easy parts and slowed down the harder parts, and the irregularity in tempo ruined the piece. But even that could be fixed through extreme focus and a strong will to maintain a constant tempo. The real killer was when I fought and got through the hard part, and once the easy part returned and I relaxed a little, my finger slipped and hit the little black key next to the key it was meant to land on. Overconfidence, haste, and so much more devils of mankind can be seen in this situation. Simply put, a challenge motivates hard work, and that creates less of a challenge, and that motivates less work, which creates more challenges that arise from it being easy. Once again, it is an endless cycle.

The Solution:

From the following example, it appears as though the cycle prevents any success, but this is false. While it makes perfection impossible, it does not prevent the pursuit of it. Basically, the pursuit will be one that is infinite, and one cannot declare mastery at any one time. If a piece is not perfect despite rigorous practice, it does not discredit the practice that has been done — it simply demands more, and it will always be demanding more. So this so-called “pursuit of mastery” is really a pursuit of growth. And growth is eternal. Simply because something can be improved further, it does not mean that work has not been done on it — and the cycle of motivation I talked about before causes an improvement every time one undergoes that cycle. The acceptance of improvement being an eternal journey is the first step to truly becoming a master of the art. Success is the journey, perfection is the destination. The destination cannot be reached, but the journey can be experienced regardless.

Thank you for reading this entry

-Vishal Janamanchi