Flexing Our Perseverance Muscle through Practice

Welcome everyone to episode 40 of the Time to Practice podcast – all about flexing our perseverance muscle. This is the first of our bite-size episodes in season two. If you’re reading this on the blog, this article acts as a transcript for the episode, this way you can either read it, or listen to it, whichever works best for you. Wording has only been adjusted for ease in reading.

you can find the Time to Practice Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Audible, Google Podcasts, or your favorite podcast platform. You can also listen directly from the link below:

In today’s episode, I want to reflect a bit on last week’s podcast with Crystal Boyack. I love how she shared that she wanted her children to learn about hard work through playing an instrument. It made me think about how when I ask families of music students what they want their child to gain long-term from studying music, 80 to 90% of the answers I get are about character qualities or life skills.

Things like developing a strong work ethic (like Crystal mentioned), perseverance, grit, leadership, and qualities along these lines. These come up so, so often and music is a great way to develop these characteristics or skills.

Of course, music isn’t the only way we can develop them. Sports can do this. Really anything that causes us to dig deep, show up, and put in the work even when we’re not feeling like it on a particular day. These are muscles we learn to flex and strengthen through our daily practice, even on days when everyone would rather just take a day off or do something else. Specifically, something that feels a little bit easier.

I think this particular topic -focused on helping our children develop these skills – can be a great “why” for us as parents and caregivers, grandparents, aunts and uncles, – anyone practicing with young musicians listening to this.

Knowing we’re helping the young musicians in our lives develop these skills is what makes it worth it to do something with the instrument, even on those hard days.

This is why we want to continue learning an instrument when it gets hard, especially if our child wants to play the instrument but doesn’t necessarily want to practice it.

Sometimes we may ask ourselves if it’s worth it on those hard days if it’s worth it. Especially when our child says they want to play, but they clearly are acting like they don’t want to practice . . . ever.

And you know, sometimes that’s because they haven’t developed this muscle yet.

This discipline or perseverance muscle.

They might like something about the experience, the lessons, the performing, the social parts of playing music and making music with others, or they may love the sound of the instrument when they hear others play it. If that is there, then I really think it’s worth it to help them develop these muscles of hard work and perseverance when we’re not in the mood. On days like these showing up every day possible and just touching the instrument can keep us going.

It can be really hard to help our children develop that grit and perseverance.

I think most of us would say, yes, I want my child, my child’s future self who’s an adult in this world, to have developed perseverance and understand how to work hard, and yet the day-to-day reality of helping them develop it is not easy. But, but it does pay off so much in the future!

To me the key is to focus on what they do love and what motivates them to want to practice.

It’s taking the time to think about how our particular child learns best.

What kind of coaching do they need from me at home to help them get through those practice sessions? (Especially if they’re not old enough to be practicing completely on their own yet).

We can find ways to work together that help the child feel that they are the most important person, the most important thing, not the results on the instrument.

That is a huge task, and parents who have practiced with their children who are now grown can tell you, none of us does it perfectly.

Many of us could look back and and see ways that we could have done this better. And still, I think it’s a great goal to be working towards helping our child feel that feeling that Crystal mentioned last week, that feeling she said her dad gave her of “I love to watch you play!”

So this is a big task.

This is why I talk about practice the way I do because I know you, the practice grownup, you need your own support, your own motivation, your own ideas to make this work.

Not just on the easy days, but especially on the hard days when we ask ourselves “why are we doing this?”

and also when you’re helping your child flex that muscle to develop perseverance and grit and determination.

Most of us want our kids to have that

and learning to do hard things on the instrument with a supportive, encouraging person who communicates that “You can do this and I will help you.” In our corner, helping us is a great way to help.

I’d love to leave you today with a couple of questions to reflect on:

• What do I hope my child is developing through music involving their character or Life skills?

• How can I support that growth and let my child know I support them as a human, while supporting these skills they’re developing on their instrument?

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I think digging into those two questions, which you will be able to find in the show notes and also (here) in the blog.

Reflecting on these questions can help us so much. So I invite you to do that this week. If you and I are connected on social media, especially Instagram @SuzukiTriangle is a great way to connect with me. I’d love you to comment on this post or send me a message and let me know what you reflected on this week.

If you are a teacher or an administrator of a music program and you support families supporting their children, those two questions can be a great topic for a discussion session.

I think the more we talk about those questions, the more motivation we find as adults supporting young children.

So, with that, I wish you a wonderful practice week.

We will be back next week with a new interview all around practice, practice skills and ideas, and I will look forward to speaking with you again then.

Have a great week everyone!