I’ve recently been working toward more consistent practice through a daily practice habit.
Today is day 95 of consecutive piano practice.
It’s not the longest practice streak I’ve ever accomplished.
Nor is it the most productive.
In fact, I spent some time today reflecting on the last 3+ months of piano practice, with mixed feelings.
There were many days when neither my brain nor my heart was in it. I was simply sitting down for a few minutes to keep the streak going.
At first, this statement feels disappointing.
After all, this is an activity that I deeply care about. Shouldn’t I feel naturally compelled to come back to the keyboard with excitement every day?
And shouldn’t I end every session with a sense of accomplishment at having moved the needle further towards my goals?
Why does it seem like so many practice days were simply a checked box rather than meaningful progress?
Is there value in the simple act of showing up?
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- What My Practice Actually Looked Like
- The Days When Practice Felt Like a Waste of Time
- Unrealistic Practice Expectations
- Maybe Productive Isn't the Only Measure of Valuable
- The Strange Satisfaction of Doing Hard Things
- What the 95 Day Streak Actually Gave Me
- Consistency Doesn't Mean Doing the Same Thing Every Day
- What I'm Learning About Showing Up
- The Value of Invisible Progress
- The Real Practice
What My Practice Actually Looked Like
Over the last 90 days, I’ve been on a journey to discover what truly effective practice looks like in the real world.
For those of us who practice around jobs, children, dinner, errands, and all the other demands of adult life, consistency rarely looks like the beautiful practice routine we imagine when we set a goal.
I’ve been reading books like Peak and Make It Stick to uncover the secrets to performance and learning.
And I’ve been working on applying these principles to my own practice through:
- Deliberate retrieval rather than mindless repetition
- Setting thoughtful goals
- Playing with more musicality vs. simply getting the notes right
I wish I could tell you I’ve been incorporating everything I’m learning into every practice session.
But many of my actual sessions over the last 95 days were:
- practicing church music because it needed to be ready
- classical pieces getting pushed to the back burner
- tired practice sessions
- distracted practice
- short practice sessions
- discouraged practice sessions where I wasn’t sure what I had accomplished
- sessions where I essentially practiced because I wanted to keep my practice streak alive
Even as I write this, I can recall more sessions that were tough for one reason or another than the really fun and productive ones.
The Days When Practice Felt Like a Waste of Time
As a busy, very type-A person, I tend to prioritize productivity above all else.
I especially love the feeling of accomplishing a big goal or project.
Although I wouldn’t say that I love cleaning, I do love the feeling of having a clean house and knowing that I was the one who did it.
But house chores and piano are very different.
When you get done scrubbing toilets and floors, there’s visible proof of what you accomplished.
You can see the shine and smell the bleach.
Piano is different.
You sit down. You play. You struggle. You stop.
And when you’re done, you ask yourself, “What did I actually accomplish?”
Maybe you’ve experienced this too.
After so many of my practice sessions over the last 95 days,
- I didn’t feel better.
- I didn’t feel particularly accomplished.
- I couldn’t point to obvious improvement.
- I wondered whether those 5 or 10 minutes mattered at all.
As I pondered all of this, a tiny spark of an idea suddenly entered my brain.
Have I created an unrealistic expectation of practice?
Perhaps my focus on productivity had taken over—and I’d begun expecting visible progress every single time I sat down at the keys.
Unrealistic Practice Expectations
This idea intensified when I came across a passage in Make it Stick about the difference between perceived and actual learning.
The uncomfortable part is that some of the practices that are most useful for learning don’t necessarily feel useful while we’re doing them.
The most effective types of learning don’t feel productive.
They feel messy and unorganized.
Progress itself can also feel painfully slow at times, especially when you’re building a skill like playing the piano.
Progress feels really quick in the beginning – learning notes and rhythms and putting them together to play basic songs.
But once you start advancing, progress slows a bit because you’re refining and building on those foundational skills rather than learning a bunch of new ones each day.
As you get further along in your studies, identifying the exact improvements that happen during an individual practice session becomes more difficult.
And that sense of satisfaction at having learned something new at the end of your session becomes more vague.
Maybe Productive Isn’t the Only Measure of Valuable
As I kept indulging thoughts about my perceived lack of progress and wasted practice sessions over the last 95 days, another thought suddenly burst through the noise.
Perhaps I needed to adapt my definition of “productive.”
That maybe simply showing up day after day is the victory.
And that staying connected to an activity that brings me so much joy and meaning, despite my busy life, is the whole point.
I’m not suggesting that thoughtful, deliberate practice doesn’t matter. It does. If our goal is to improve, we still need to challenge ourselves, solve problems, retrieve what we’ve learned, and spend time working on the difficult things.
But I’m beginning to wonder if I’ve been asking practice to give me too much in return.
Maybe every session doesn’t need to produce measurable improvement to be worthwhile.
The Strange Satisfaction of Doing Hard Things
I recently listened to an interview with Arthur Brooks on the 10% Happier with Dan Harris podcast.
Brooks asserts that we often assume achievement itself will make us happy, when the striving—the hard work we put in without any guarantee of results—can provide a deeper sense of satisfaction.
And sometimes, the day-to-day is frustrating.
You feel like you have to repeat something 50 times before you remember it.
Or your attention fades quickly because you’ve already put in a long day at work and you’re tired.
The kids are screaming, and the TV is blaring.
But looking back over the last 95 days, I feel a quiet pride in having prioritized something I love doing, even if many of the sessions didn’t feel particularly useful.
And I start to question again whether my tendency toward “productivity” is truly useful, or whether it’s just stealing joy and masking a sense of meaning in doing something I find worthwhile.
What the 95 Day Streak Actually Gave Me
When I started this practice streak, my goal was to get better at the piano.
I wanted to develop a more structured practice routine and apply the improvement principles I was learning in the books I’ve been reading.
More specifically, I wanted to make visible progress at some of the following:
- learning a new piece faster
- permanently fixing a passage
- increasing tempo
- rock-solid memorization
- playing something better than yesterday
And I thought all of this would result in a meaningful improvement in my playing and performance.
When I think back over the last 95 days, I don’t feel I actually gained more structure in my practice routine, and I don’t even think I meaningfully improved my playing in any one specific area.
Which does feel disheartening to type.
But when I look further back at the past 95 days, what I gained was far more than some arbitrary goal of “improving my playing.”
When I started this journey, my goals very much revolved around visible progress. But these 95 days have shown something subtle, yet arguably more important.
The last 95 days have proven I am:
- becoming someone who returns
- developing tolerance for frustration
- maintaining a relationship with the instrument
- learning that you can practice without feeling motivated
- becoming less perfectionistic
- learning that five minutes can still matter
- developing trust in the process
I used to measure practice by what I could see at the end of a session. But the value of practice isn’t always visible at the end of the session. Sometimes the value is in what the practice is quietly building over time.
Consistency Doesn’t Mean Doing the Same Thing Every Day
When I set out on this journey, I thought consistency meant finding a practice routine and sticking to it religiously.
Some days, I met my expectations.
But on others, I was completely exhausted by work and had only 5 minutes of concentration at the end of the day.
On others, I was more interested in playing around with pop songs than devoting attention to serious repertoire.
Ultimately, I learned that consistency doesn’t mean following some arbitrary practice script.
Consistency is actually about maintaining your connection to something you love; something that brings you joy.
It means showing up, day after day, even when it’s hard, or you don’t feel like doing it.
It’s about being flexible with yourself on hard days and finding ways to adapt when life gets hard.
What I’m Learning About Showing Up
Showing up doesn’t guarantee progress.
You will have days when you sit down, and it’s like you’ve never played a day in your life.
And on others, you’ll feel ready to play at Carnegie Hall.
Showing up doesn’t require perfect practice.
In fact, the days that don’t go well show you the most about who you are as a person.
And those days that don’t go well? Those are the best days to drop expectations and look for ways to make piano fun!
Showing up changes how you relate to difficulty.
Every hard or frustrating practice session is a chance for you to learn how to do difficult things.
And it proves you’re not someone who gives up easily.
The Value of Invisible Progress
I thought the last 95 days were about piano practice.
But they were actually an opportunity to practice so much more:
- patience
- persistence
- returning
- tolerating frustration
- letting go of perfection
- doing something without an immediate reward
- trusting that today’s work might matter tomorrow
Most of all, it was an opportunity to practice finding joy despite all the daily challenges life threw at me.
I set out to become a better piano practicer. Instead, I learned why showing up matters—even when I can’t prove it worked.
The Real Practice
Tomorrow will be Day 96.
I have no idea what that practice session will look like.
Maybe I’ll have an hour and make great progress on a piece I’ve been neglecting.
Maybe I’ll sit down for five minutes and practice something for church.
Maybe I’ll practice something badly and walk away frustrated.
But I’ll sit down.
Not because every practice session is productive.
Not because I’ve figured out the secret to consistency.
And not because I think a specific practice streak measures a good pianist.
I’ll sit down because I’ve learned that there is value in returning.
Sometimes showing up is the practice.
If you found inspiration in this post, drop a comment below!
And if you’d like to continue the journey, here are a few other posts you’ll love!
- Beyond the Notes: Why We Play Piano
- Looking for a Piano Practice App? Here’s What to Look For
- Beyond the Notes: Why Playing it Again Isn’t Practice
- How to Build a Piano Practice Habit When Motivation Fades
- Beyond the Notes: Why Feedback is the Missing Piece of Piano Practice
Until next time, happy practicing!
