Practice Makes A Habit

PRACTICE MAKES YOU PERFECT. In every point of life we have heard others saying this. In-fact this one is practically the mantra of math teachers and sport coaches who run the drill.  But is it really so? Does practice  really make you perfect? I don't think so. I think it's just a misconception.

The reason why it's so widely believed is because it's so close to the truth. When we try to master a skill, the way we do it is by doing that skill over and over again, until we becomes familiar with it.  

What's really happening in our brain is that different parts of it are getting linked together by connections called synapses. More  we repeat the process, the stronger those synapses become. And stronger they are, the more automatic that skill is. In fact they become what we call habits. They are so ingrained into our minds that we can even do them to an extent without thinking.

But as we all know very well, we can form bad habits just as easily as we form good ones just because you practice something repeatedly that doesn't guarantee that what you're practicing is good. Like any music teacher will tell you, practicing the wrong techniques will land you in more trouble than if you hadn't practiced at all because you'll get very good at doing things in an ineffective way and then it becomes more difficult to correct and learn that as we start loving the ineffective short cut way.

It can also be seen with math and accounts students. While practicing for exams they don't set out their work properly as they don't take the time to draw proper diagrams/accounts. They just do it in a rough way and say that "I know how I'm supposed to do it and I'll do it right in the test."  But invariably they don't. Practice makes habits and they take those bad habits right into the exam hall then wonder why they didn't do well in the test.

These could be the one like, practicing the graph/diagram in a rough way. We get so used to it that we go on to repeat that in the exam hall. Other one could be missing the indicators/markings/points in the graph. When we are practicing, we just keep our attention on preparing the graphs, specially the complex one. We don't lay our attention on the markings. We just make a raw graph and doesn't mark important points thinking that we can do that in exam. But unfortunately we aren't able to do that when time arrives. We either forget to do so or aren't able to recall the important parts that are there in the diagram. Due to it we suffer. This was what happened with me in one of my exam. I almost got carried away and was preparing the diagram in a rough way. I realized that in time and corrected my mistake but wasn't able to recall the important points in the diagram. 

There's another example of my friend from school. If you are a accounts student, you must be aware of the importance of writing narrations after every transaction. While practicing we don't write them thinking that they aren't important and we will write them in  the exams. This was what my friend tend to do the most. But when the time arrived, he forgot to write the narrations and did the questions in the way he used to practice which costed him more than half marks in that question. 

So, the point is that practice does not make perfect, practice makes habit so be very careful with it.

Another thing I want to add is that to never involve in over practice. Practice until a certain level, as over practice creates a problem. Repeating a thing beyond a certain level results in a mental pressure which in turn deteriorates our thinking ability. It causes disturbance, makes us weak both mentally and physically due to which we aren't able to think in a different way. It sets a certain boundary creating a set pattern or habit in mind due to which we aren't able to think out of that area. Citing a example from my life, one of my exams had a gap of 9 days. So, I decided to practice with sample papers.  But,  I practiced more than what was required and I almost ended up messing my exam.  

The reason for it was that the over practice resulted in setting a certain pattern in my mind which I wasn't able to overdo in that 3 hour exam.

Another example for over practicing causing problem is that of kids who are given cursive writing books to improve their writing. Parents put such a pressure on kid to involve in over practice that instead of improvement in writing, their writing deteriorates further. 

So, practice in a correct manner and in limit. As over practice and wrong practice lands you in trouble.