Whether it’s in a professional context or a personal one, we all recognise the power of repetition.
The more often we do something, the more familiar it gets.
The more often we say something, the more embedded it becomes into our way of being.
For a business, this might look like:
- Teaching team members to follow standard processes for attaining reliable results.
- Repeating company values & your mission statement continually – until you could recite it in your sleep.
- Building a reputation for serving a particular group of customers better than anyone else can… simply because you’ve done it so many times.
In our personal lives, this might look like:
- Imparting important lessons to children or other family members.
- Dedicating ourselves to playing a sport or mastering a musical instrument, putting in the time over years to reach a higher level of skill.
- Overcoming the things we’re afraid of by exposing ourselves – time & again – to the things that make us quake.
By its nature, repetition is neutral. It’s not necessarily good or bad. The value it creates depends on how it’s used.
Put another way:
Practice doesn’t make perfect.
Practice makes permanent.
The more often we do something, the deeper the groove we create. But if we do that thing incorrectly – with no regard for correcting those mistakes over time, or learning from our actions to improve our results – all we reinforce are things we don’t want.
That’s a double-edged sword.
To the discerning mind, repetition is a powerful force for change.
For the unthinking one, repetition cements bad habits and could eventually leave us stuck entirely in our ways.
That’s not to say that there’s no value in imperfect action. “Failure” (in all its forms) is a necessary part of the learning process. But it’s one thing to fail, and to do so in a way we can learn from…
It’s another thing entirely to gain something from that experience – and to carry that wisdom forward, such that it puts us on a better course in every situation thereafter.
The first time we do something, everything about it is novel.
Our reasons for approaching it, the way we engage with the process, the results we produce, how we interpret them…
All of these factors are just ideas until they’re transformed into lived experience through action.
The second time we do something, that’s no longer the case. Expectation influences approach, engagement, results, and our perception.
As it is with the second time, so it is with the third, the fourth, and all the rest.
The more often we do something, the more deeply engrained it becomes.
The key:
Take nothing for granted.
Recognise the lessons you’re learning from each run through the cycle.
Critically analyse those lessons.
If they serve you, keep them. If they don’t, change course.
Above all else –> don’t sleepwalk into a reinforced way of being.
Intentional or accidental, ultimate failure is ultimate failure.
You owe it to yourself to acknowledge the implications of the path you’re on. And to make a change if it’s not bringing you where you want to go.