Piano with Robyn

What’s one of the easiest ways to stop a promising habit in its tracks? 🙈

Taking on too much too soon.

It’s great to have lofty goals, but goals don’t necessarily get you where you want to go - and they can even be overwhelming and make it hard to get started.

So what’s the key to the third factor of building habits that stick? Keeping the barrier to entry low. Make it so easy to show up that you can’t say no.

This might look like starting with the habit of playing just 4 measures. Or one scale. Or for two minutes. Something that gives you a quick win. You’ll build on it later!

So what’s it going to be?

Story time 😆

My freshman year in college, my boyfriend at the time sent me a huge package of chocolate for Valentine’s Day. (But seriously, so much chocolate 😂)

My roommate and I decided that we should try to ration the chocolate so it would last longer, so we said that we could each take a piece of chocolate when we came home from class. Sort of a reward for making it through classes and going home to do homework.

And like Pavlov’s dogs, I started noticing that my mouth would start watering as I would walk up to my building. So... what on earth does this have to do with piano?

I had built a *reward* into coming home at the end of the day to do homework. My *cue* was walking up to the dorm building. And that cue was so closely related to the reward, that I was already *craving* the reward for sitting down at my desk (the *response*).

Because of that craving, I didn’t hang out in the lounge before doing my homework. I went straight to my dorm room.

The second step to making a practice habit that sticks is having a strong enough craving for the reward you’re going to experience.

You’ve already set your cue. This week, whenever you receive your cue to practice, notice what craving you feel - do you crave getting to play your favorite music? The dessert you’ve promised yourself afterwards? Or do you crave crashing on the couch and watching Netflix instead?

No judgment - just take note of what you crave, what you really want to do, when you receive your cue. And if you notice that the craving to sit down at the piano isn’t strong enough... then start to brainstorm ideas of ways to strengthen the craving that will get you there.

Did you see the sight-reading workbook I published a few weeks ago?

It’s 14 days of FREE sight-reading exercises to help you practice the basics of improving your reading skills. Imagine improving your reading in under 5 minutes a day.

Drop a 🎹 in the comments and I’ll send you the link!

Can you relate? 🤫

You come home from work. It’s been a long day in a crazy week. You’re exhausted.

And then it hits you: “Crap. I have a piano lesson tomorrow, and I haven’t practiced all week.”

It’s the third week in a row that this has happened to you.

It’s not that you don’t want to play, and it’s not that you’re sick of lessons, it’s just that time keeps running by and you’re not sure how to get ahead of things.

(How do I know this? Could it be that the piano teacher herself has been in this position??)

Listen, life gets busy, and the squeaky wheel gets the kick. So... find a way to make the piano squeak?

Sometimes, it really is that simple. If you’ve set aside your practice times for the week, but find that you still aren’t making it to the piano, you might be missing one of the key elements to building a habit: a CUE that reminds you of your date with yourself at the piano.

Make sure that it’s something *obvious* that you can’t overlook. Set an alarm on your phone, and when the alarm goes off, it’s time to go to the piano.

Or try habit stacking - if you make a pot of coffee every morning and want to practice before you leave for work, try leaving your sheet music beside the coffee pot. Wake up, make your coffee, and take your music to the piano to get some morning practice in.

If you want to practice before your evening run, leave your sheet music with your running clothes - change into the running clothes, go practice, then go run.

The point is - think about when you want to practice, and then think about a way that you can create some sort of cue to remind yourself - something that you can’t overlook.

Right now, I’ve got an alarm set in my phone, and I’m tracking how consistent I am with a habit app. What’s your cue going to be?

Do you know the 4 proven steps to building a habit that lasts?

If you’ve been struggling to keep your piano practice consistent (or any habit for that matter), take the guess-work out of it and make sure you have the 4 key elements to lasting habits.

1. Cue - you need something to remind you about your habit (so that you don’t end up thinking “oh crap, I haven’t practiced in a week!” the night before your lesson 🙃)

2. Craving - you need to find a way to make *starting* appealing. Like Pavlov’s dogs, you need to feel the desire to start practicing when you receive your cue - otherwise the excuses will start to pile up (“not today, I’m too tired. I’ll practice tomorrow.”)

3. Response - this is the showing up! You sit down at the piano and start to play. If 1 and 2 are strong enough, you’re more likely to follow through on sitting down at the piano.

4. Reward - this needs to be strong enough to keep you returning to the piano day after day. Maybe you reward yourself at the end of a practice session by playing and enjoying your favorite piece. Or maybe chocolate is a better motivator 😆 Find what will get you really excited about sitting down at the piano tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day

We’ll talk more about these over the next few weeks.

If you’ve been hit or miss in your practicing, which of these steps could be missing from your practice routine? Let’s talk about it in the comments! ⬇️

This simple method took my reading skills from... abysmal 😬 to having the confidence to sit down and read through any music I want to learn.

Did it change things overnight? No. I’m not going to come at you with click-bait and promises to change your playing in just 5 minutes. But I *CAN* promise you that if you commit to intentionally practicing this skill, you will hardly recognize your reading abilities a few months from now.

So what’s the secret? Intervals.

Reading music can really be broken down into three simple steps:
1. Starting with landmark notes to start finding your way around
2. Recognizing if your notes are moving up, down, or staying the same
3. Identifying the distance between each note (i.e. Intervals.)

I’ve talked about step 1 a lot. I’ve also helped you practice 2 a few times. And now we’re going to start diving into step 3.

Today, we’re keeping things simple and we’re ONLY dealing with steps (or seconds). These are easy to recognize, because the notes are always neighboring lines/spaces, which means that they’re also always neighboring keys on the piano.

Does this seem too easy? It is easy! And it will get more complicated - but take a minute or two a day to master this basic skill, and really - you’re going to see big results. Promise!

Are you struggling to keep up with the practice goals you set at the beginning of the year?

I get it. I’ve been there many times myself. (I’d say countless times, but I’m not thaaaat old yet 😆)

The New Year energy is real: it’s a shiny opportunity to turn over a new leaf and finally get started on things you’ve been putting off for a while -since last January, maybe? 🙃

And that’s all well and good, but what do you do when the novelty wears off, the daily grind settles back in, and you inevitably trip up? Because seriously, nobody ever built a new habit without falling off the wagon a time or two.

We’ll be talking about ways to build a practice routine that really sticks over the next few weeks, and today we’re starting off with something simple: schedule your practice time.

This step alone won’t guarantee that you show up for every single scheduled session. Life gets busy, things get in the way, and plans change. But I can promise you that scheduling your practice times will help you show up more consistently, which in turn will help you start to build momentum.

Tell me your practice times in the comments below, and let’s help each other along the way!