Values as Deliberate Practice
Fragments from imaginary dialogues
“How can I deliberately practice my Values?”
“Let’s take Gratitude as an example.
Every time you express Gratitude for something, you’re practicing it. We might call this, one ‘Gratitude-rep[etition]’.
How many Gratitude-reps do you do during a day?
I call this, practice-density.
You might do it once at the end of the day. Certainly better than nothing. However the more reps you do during a day, the better. All these little reps add up.
How you do the reps is also important.
How many quality Gratitude-reps do you do during a day?
A low-quality rep is just going through the motions in order to get it done.
A quality rep is doing it slowly and reverently, like a ritual. You might even have a physical gesture, like the bowing in martial arts, or a stance.
A quality rep is fully experiencing the feeling of Gratitude in your body – a quality rep is embodied.
In a sense, every quality rep is a Meditation.
It’s also important to gain clarity on – design – the details of the practice.
What specifically do you want to do?
What specifically do you want to think? Where do you want to direct your attention?
For instance, I think of everything I express Gratitude for as a Gift.
You might even have a theme that captures the essence of the practice.”
“What is the theme for your Gratitude practice?”
“Take NOTHING for granted.“
Gratitude Practice 3
Fragments from imaginary dialogues
“What is the highest end of the Gratitude practice?”
“Taking NOTHING for granted.
This is a practice in itself.
By default, we tend to take everything for granted. To counter this tendency, it takes deliberate directing of the attention, by constantly asking yourself:
What am I taking for granted?
As they come into your Awareness, savor their simple Beauty, and express Loving Gratitude for all these Gifts.”
The Beautiful Practice 3
Fragments from imaginary dialogues
“You can practice something in any waking moment.“
“The challenge is remembering it.”
“Think of it as part of the practice.
Ask yourself often:
What’s the practice?
In any moment, know what you’re practicing, whether it’s a value or a skill.
You can even say it to yourself.
eg
[I’m practicing…]
– Presence, Love, Connection [Values]
– Questions-Thinking, Models-Thinking [Types of Thinking]
– Empty-Space, Inversion [Specific Principles/Models]
…”
“In any moment? Is that really possible?”
“It’s one of those things worth striving for, even if you may never achieve it.”
On Magic and Detachment
Fragments from imaginary dialogues
“When playing Magic the Gathering, what’s the most challenging practice?”
“At first, it was keeping it under control. Playing only the amount of time I allocate for it, and playing only after finishing my work for the day, no earlier than 5pm. It was very challenging, but I succeeded. Considering how addictive the game is for me, this is a huge accomplishment.
The most challenging practice now is Detachment from the outcome. Maintaining Balance, by focusing on playing well (and on the beauty of the game) rather than on winning, and in the face of losing and winning.
As a side note, a beautiful thing about Magic is that it’s an environment that allows me to actually practice Detachment. Games in Magic are relatively short (10-20 minutes). I like to think of each game as a repetition (rep). Playing it every day, I get a lot of reps in.”
“How does losing and winning disturb your Balance?”
“There are many aspects that can influence the outcome of a game. The relative power-level of the decks, the skill of the players – which can be quantified by the quality of their decisions (decision-making) and the number of mistakes they make (focus) –, the cards they draw over the course of the game. Due to the random shuffling of the decks, every game of Magic is unique, every gameplay situation a unique puzzle. And, unlike jigsaw puzzles, Magic puzzles often have hidden information.
Magic is a game of decision-making under conditions of uncertainty. Your decisions and capacity to focus are the only things within your control, which do not guarantee victory. You will inevitably lose some games. But even though I understand these things, I have a tendency to forget after a game is over.
After winning, I feel good, as if everything was under my control. There’s several cognitive biases at work here, among which Resulting, tendency to equate outcome-quality with decision-quality (it is possible to win even if I played poorly), and Hindsight Bias, tendency after an outcome is known to see it as inevitable.
After losing, I feel bad, perceiving it as a personal failure, as if everything was under my control.
Before a game, the practice lies in centering myself.
After a game, in letting go, reconnecting with the value of Humility, and asking myself:
Could I have played better?“
Values as Practice
Fragment from imaginary dialogues
“Values are a practice.“
“I’d add one important detail:
Values are a mindful practice – which is to say, a deliberate practice.
One aspect of it is recognizing (and celebrating) opportunities to practice. Whenever you have the opportunity to embody a value, say, Humility, you can actually say to yourself ‘I’m practicing Humility‘, or simply ‘Humility‘. You’re thus actively using your values as guides.
Another aspect of it is creating opportunities to practice. This means asking yourself:
What’s the practice?
What specific things can you do to practice value x?
Let’s take Gratitude for instance. The practice might be saying to yourself ‘Take NOTHING for granted‘, saying ‘Thank you‘, and thinking of something or finding something around you that you’re grateful for. Or picking anything around you and finding something about it that you’re grateful for.
Or let’s take Love. The practice might be saying to yourself ‘I am Love‘, expressing love to the present, past and future versions of yourself [<link; medium length], and then sending love to the people you care for most. You might then even use Big Thinking [link; medium] to send love to all humanity.”
1-minute Meditation
Fragments from imaginary dialogues
“The goal of the 1-minute meditation is to focus on your breath for one minute.“
“What’s the benefit of meditating for just one minute?”
“A lot can happen in your mental-space in just one minute.
The 1-minute time-frame is deceptively small. When you use it to frame your meditation practice, time seems to dilate, in the same way putting your hand on a hot stove for a minute seems like an hour. I call it subjective-time. You can have a deep practice session in just one minute.
And there are other benefits. It’s impossible not to find time for it. It makes it easier to get started. However one of the main benefits has to do with Deliberate Practice.
You can string 1-minute micro-meditations one after another to form one continuous block – what I call modular-meditation [<link; medium read].
Let’s compare a 10-minute meditation with a modular-meditation consisting of 10 1-minute micro-meditations.
The essential unit of effective practice is the quality-rep(etition) – or, as I call it, the beautiful-rep. The more beautiful-reps you can get within a certain time-frame, the more effective the practice. Using the density [<link; medium read] model, we can say effective practice is denser.
During a 10-minute meditation, it is possible for your mind to wander most of the time. That’s a low density practice.
The 1-minute micro-meditations structure your practice. You can think of them as checkpoints, which bring your wandering mind back, ensuring a higher density practice.
You can think of each 1-minute block as a bigger rep – 1-minute-reps. What the 1-minute-reps offer is fast feedback. Once a minute passes, you immediately know if it was a quality-rep or not.”
“A quality 1-minute-rep is one in which your mind did not wander?”
“Yes.
You can even count them, just like you might do with breaths.
Another approach I use is to aim for just one quality 1-minute-rep. Once you get it, you’re done. If you don’t get, add another one, and another one, until you do get it.”
Beautiful Models: Contextual-Priming
Fragments from imaginary dialogues
“What is Contextual-Priming?”
“I regard Priming as a practical art/game [<link; short read].
Priming is a means of activating your resources.”
“So a means of turning passive-knowledge into active-knowledge [<link; medium read]?”
“Precisely.
Contextual-Priming means deliberately and strategically activating specific resources – eg linguistic-tools – for a specific context.”
“So a kind of preparation.”
“Yes.
It could be for dealing with an anticipated problem.
It could be for a training session.
To make the process more efficient, it’s essential that you organize your resources.
One way to do that is by creating tool-sets – or mini-decks [<link; medium read], to use a different model. That is, making small selections of tools for specific situations. The best tool-sets are the ones that cover the widest variety of situations.
This is something you can play and experiment with.
Let’s say a particular set of linguistic-tools is the best way of dealing with a certain life-situation. Anticipating the situation, you bring to mind the tools ahead of time – you contextually-prime yourself – such that when the situation presents itself, the tools are more readily available.”
Reclaiming verbal empties
Fragments from imaginary dialogues
“Thank you.”
“Do you actually feel Gratitude (substantial), or just going through the motions (formal)?”
“I guess I was kind of going through the motions.”
“We sometimes utter words without connecting with their meaning. I call such instances verbal empties.
One component of Artful Living is the reclaiming of verbal empties.
Saying ‘thank you’ is a beautiful opportunity to practice Gratitude.
Saying ‘I love x’ is a beautiful opportunity to connect with the universe of Love.”
Beautiful Habits: Appreciating Habits
Fragments from imaginary dialogues
“Appreciate how far you’ve come.”
“What’s the PRACTICE?”
“What do you mean? Isn’t it obvious?”
“I mean what actionable steps are you taking to practicing Appreciation in this specific instance?
Values are a PRACTICE.
I’d go even further.
Values are a DELIBERATE Practice.
Thinking of it in terms of rep(etition)s, what counts as a rep?”
“I’d say actually expressing Appreciation in the moment.”
“Precisely. The more often, the better. Every little rep counts. Every little rep is an investment, which will lead to huge returns for your future-self.
In actionable terms, one way you can appreciate how far you’ve come is by appreciating habits.
Habits are the fundamental building-blocks of your life.
As with most things, we take them for granted, not realizing that, in their compounded effect, they make us who we are, and lead us towards who we want to be.
Make it a habit to NOTICE the good habits you’ve formed, big and small, and, equally important, the bad ones you’ve discarded, and express heartfelt gratitude every time you do.”
Dani Trusca 
Recent Comments