Practice vs Performance (or Why You Can't Just Fly a Plane)

Imagine the scene in Random Adventure Movie:

Our intrepid heroine/hero is on a plane flying over the tundra / dense forest / desert / jungle. Something happens to the pilot and suddenly our Intrepid Adventurer has no choice! They have to fly the plane! We are at the edge of our seats: will they make it? I mean, really, the best we can hope for is that they survive! After all, they have no training as a pilot! Maybe they've read a book, or played a video game, or they have a Helpful Voice In Their Headset to help, but it's all on them, and it's dicey whether or not they'll survive. Gasp!

Several bated breaths later and hurrah! They manage, somehow, to land the plane! It's not pretty, but they made it down alive! Of course, in the process they've done some damage to the plane and themselves, and they are definitely Not Where They Wanted To Be, so there will be more mis/adventures as they work to get themselves and whoever is with them to safety. Whew!

Now replace 'flying a plane' with 'having a difficult conversation' or 'navigating a relationship' or 'dealing with your friends /parents /boss /children /partner' or 'making good choices'. It's kind of the same, right? Our Intrepid Adventurer thinks "I can make good choices! I've watched movies where they made good (and bad) choices, so it can't be so hard!"

But without having practiced it, they end up crash-landing the conversation/choice/relationship and then picking up the pieces. Not because they're stupid or didn't try hard enough or any other reason except one: they didn't get the information first and practice it. So instead of doing a small easy thing many times, they did a big hard thing once, and got through it with bumps, bruises, and a metaphorical plane that won't fly without some serious repair work.

Most of us were TOLD to do the right thing, but we weren't taught how, specifically, to DO the right thing. Heck, in the moment, under pressure, 'the right thing' kind of goes out of most of our heads and we simply focus on surviving.

If you're dealing with your kids, that can mean that a request to "put down your phone and come for dinner" suddenly spirals into them resisting, you going into fight or flight, and when the plane lands and the smoke clears, either your kid has their phone AT the table despite your request, or you have crazy glued a padlock onto it out of sheer exasperation.

If you're dealing with the annoying person down the street, that can mean that "hey, I just wanted to talk to you about you mowing your lawn at 5 am every day" can devolve into a screaming match where you suddenly find yourself shouting like you're Tony Soprano reacting to being disrespected.

If you're dealing with That Difficult Conversation with your partner about how they want to go back to school and you're worried about how you're going to pay your bills, that can mean that your intention of "hey, honey, of course I want you to be happy, let's figure out how to do this" somehow turns into a conversation where they run sobbing from the room because they "never feel supported."

When you haven't practiced skill sets, things can spiral quickly. But that doesn't mean they HAVE to. The more you decide which skill sets matter, which choices matter, which pieces of moral code matter, the more you can practice them. After that, an 'impossible' conversation becomes a challenging one...then a slight difficult one...then a 'hey, that was kind of fun' one.

Part of the reason we use The Black Belt Mind is because the skill sets you learn in the dojo, emotionally, are the same ones you use in your day to day life. They’re not personality traits. They’re not things you either “have” or “don’t have”. 

 They’re just skills. And like any skill, they get easier with practice.

Check out our (free!) White Belt course here for one of the most important pieces of awareness we believe any of us can have. Come listen to our weekly radio show for specific chances to acquire skill sets and how to safely practice them. Heck, email us at: yourdigitaldojo(at)gmail(dot)com with your questions for the show and requests for future episodes - we LOVE that.

You don't need to get a black belt in the dojo or The Digital Dojo, but every skill helps your life get smoother and easier. So the next time a metaphorical plane's pilot collapses, you don’t have to rely on luck, adrenaline, or sheer willpower. You can stand up and say "I've got this!" and actually mean it.

Yours in learning how to fly your indiviual life planes,

Colleen and Dana