The Mind Over Finger Podcast - 245 Long-Term Growth vs. Short-Term Pressure: Why Trying to Master Everything Is Slowing You Down and How to Fix It

Starting point is 00:00:00 You're listening to the Mind Over Finger podcast. This is episode 245. Welcome to the Mind Over Finger podcast, where we dive into the world of mindful music making, peak performance, and crafting a purpose-driven life and career. I'm your host, violinist, certified performance and life coach for musicians, and your guide to unlocking your full potential, Dr. Ranipo Gautier. Hi everyone, I hope you're doing great and I'm so happy you're here. Today I want to talk about something that comes up all the time, both in my coaching sessions and in my own practice, in my own life, and that's the tension between long-term goals and short-term performance needs. And it's a good time to talk about this. It's the beginning of the year

Starting point is 00:00:54 and a lot of us are feeling that fresh start energy. We're setting goals, we're motivated, we're inspired and then a few weeks in things start to feel heavy. That initial excitement fades and there are many reasons for this of course but one of the big ones is that we're trying to do everything at once. We're trying to chase all the long-term goals while also dealing with the short-term deadlines. And this, my friends, is the recipe for overwhelm. So today, I want to help you untangle this a little bit and share how you can approach your goals in the way that actually feels good and will move you forward. Maybe you're like a lot of my clients, maybe you've experienced this where you have some long-term goals, some things that you want to improve about your playing,

Starting point is 00:01:54 big foundational things. Maybe it's your sound, your double stops, your vibrato, your spiccato articulation, things like this. And at the same time, you have a performance or an audition or a big gig coming up fast. And instead of working on the repertoire, are, you spend all of your practice time trying to fix that one big goal. You're obsessing over every note, over the vibrato or the sound color, the quality of reticulation. And before you know it, the deadline is here and you don't feel prepared. You get stuck in perfectionism. You see what happens here is that because the long-term goal is not where you want it to be, you slow down the progress of the short-term needs and maybe you don't take the audition

Starting point is 00:02:49 or maybe you don't play the concert or it doesn't go as well as it could have or maybe you don't say yes to the gig and that in turn gets in the way of reaching that long-term goal because you're saying no to all of these milestones along the way that would help you get there, right? I don't know if this sounds familiar for you, but this is something I see musicians struggle with all the time. And I think it's a really important conversation because if we're not intentional, and listen to me when I say this, perfectionism in pursuit of our long-term goals can actually sabotage our short-term progress and ultimately delay the long-term results as well. I'm going to say it again. Long-term goals, they're important. But if

Starting point is 00:03:46 perfectionism hijacks your short-term process, you end up moving slower towards both. So today, I want to unpack why this happens and how you can avoid the trap so you can move forward on both levels in a smart, sustainable way. Let's dive in. First, let's define what we're talking about. So a long-term goal might be a big foundational aspect of your playing that you want to improve. Something like, I want to change my embouchure. I want to change my bow arm. I want to improve my intonation, my vibrato. I want better spiccato or double tonguing, things like that. And when they talk about this to me, clients say things like, that's the one thing holding me back. I need to fix this to have a chance at winning a job. Or when I fix this, I'm going to

Starting point is 00:04:46 feel confident. When I fix this, I'm going to play with ease. When I fix my bow hold, I'm going to reach all of these other amazing goals. I have to fix this. And those are great goals. And sometimes maybe necessary. Maybe you need to solidify these foundational skills that don't feel as strong as you want them to be. But to do that, you need time. Big goals like this, they're layered. They require repetition and they require a lot of patience. And that's because when you're trying to build a new skill, you need to create new neural pathways in the brain, new synapses, and that requires time and patience and many nights of sleep. On the other hand, we have short-term needs. I need to prepare this piece for my recital next month, or I have an audition

Starting point is 00:05:45 in six weeks. I need to get this movement ready for a rehearsal tomorrow. These are immediate, it. And they require clarity, focus, and often compromise. The challenge is that when we sit down to practice, we cannot focus on everything at once. When you're trying to juggle both types of goals without a strategy, that's when tension, that's when guilt, and that's when frustration start to build. Now, here's where things get tricky. If building a new skill takes time, how are you supposed to show up right now, right? Well, I would offer this. Try to compartmentalize. You want to negotiate some fine lines of constant compromises and you want to adjust your expectations. You want to let go of perfectionism and you want to focus on progress.

Starting point is 00:06:54 Long-term goals, especially things like changing your embouchure, your bow technique, your breathing approach, that requires a lot of dedication, but it also invites in perfectionism. And because they're so important, we tend to get wrapped up in making every note just right. But if we do that, while we're also trying to prepare a piece under a deadline, we get stuck. We don't finish learning the piece. We beat ourselves up. And worst of all, we don't make satisfying progress on the long-term goal either. as i said earlier perfectionism in one area ends up stalling both and this is the paradox i want

Starting point is 00:07:47 you to hear clearly today if we chase perfection we delay progress on everything let's look at an example let's say you're preparing for an audition you're working on learning an excerpt and you also want to improve your bow arm technique you're unsure if you're a wind player. Let's say that's your big long-term focus right now. So you sit down to practice. You start the excerpt. And right away, things don't feel and they don't sound exactly how you want it to. And that's normal, right? Because you're learning that new skill. So you stop. You repeat it again. You start adjusting. then the next passage bugs you so you try to fix that too and before you know it 40 minutes have

Starting point is 00:08:42 gone by and you're not even halfway through the excerpt and the bow arm or the embouchure still isn't what you want and the piece isn't learned and now you feel behind and discouraged This happens all the time. I've done it myself. I've heard it from clients and I know how disheartening it feels. Now, if you don't have obligations and you have the luxury to lock yourself in a practice room for six months and emerge transformed, that's amazing. Do that. So fun. Sign me up. But I find that that's rarely the case for anyone. So what's the solution? If you can't stop working for the next six months and you want to keep working toward the transformation, what can you do? Well, you can try this. Start thinking in segments.

Starting point is 00:09:43 There are growth segments in your practice. That's when your primary focus is technical development. And then there are delivery segments. And that's when your focus is on learning and preparing to show up ready. And guess what? You cannot serve both equally every day in every practice session. And that's okay. The skill is in learning to ask some questions. What's the most important outcome this week, this session, this minute? Where do I need to direct my energy, my limited energy and my limited time? So there are going to be periods when you can dedicate a lot of your time working towards your big goal. The time when you might be able to balance doing both and time when you have to prioritize the current needs. Just know this, letting go of a

Starting point is 00:10:50 long-term focus temporarily is not failure. I want you to call that strategic mastery. And guess what? Putting it aside for a little bit can actually help the new technique get assimilated better in the long run. The brain is amazing in that way. So how do we keep making progress without getting pulled in all directions? Here are a couple things that could really help. The first one is to time block with intention. So instead of trying to do everything all at once, give each priority its own time. If you're preparing for something urgent, like a performance or an audition or a gig, give that your full attention for a portion of your session. And the second thing I recommend you try is to design a technique regimen that is targeted and flexible that you can start your practice with.

Starting point is 00:11:52 I talk about this in details in episode 139, by the way, so make sure to catch that. so pick elements that are going to help you build your new skill and apply to your current needs this is going to help you get the transformation started and make the new technical skill accompany you in the rest of the session even if it doesn't feel like it when you have more time that's fantastic you have this gift of a long warm-up and a long technique work amazing when you don't have time, you can use a truncated version. It's still going to make a difference. Even 10 minutes of quality work toward a long-term goal really adds up as long as you're present for it. Then after your warm-up, you organize your session in segments to practice the current needs.

Starting point is 00:12:48 And I talk about this in length in episode 140. Catch that one as well. And in that episode, I give you my formula to build your practice session. And here's the nuance. You don't have to separate them completely. Let's say your main goal today is learning the notes in a new piece for your gig tomorrow. That's your focus. You're building fluency. You're getting things under your fingers. But as you do that, you can still stay aware of your vibrato or how your bow feels or your posture, whatever long-term things you're nurturing. But the key is this. Let your long-term goals ride in the background. Let them support your work, but don't let them interrupt it. It's not about ignoring your embouchure or your bow arm, your vibrato, whatever it is that you're

Starting point is 00:13:43 trying to change. It's about not letting them take over when your priority is learning material. You can attend to both as long as you stay grounded in your intention for this segment of the session. And there's something really important that we need to talk about, and that is to take the time to get clarity. Have a clear idea of what you want. For your long-term goals, what are you trying to fix? What skill or skills are you trying to build? what exercises or drills would help you with this who could help you with this how much time do you think you need to create that skill how much time every day do you want to spend working on it what would a good technique regimen look like for this ask yourself these questions

Starting point is 00:14:39 and start making a plan again you want a technique regimen that is targeted but flexible so you can adjust it to what you need for each specific day because life's going to get in the way for sure. And for the short term, have a clear plan of how you're going to structure the work for the urgent and current needs. One of the things I have my clients do is a reverse engineering plan for each project. That's very helpful. Also know how you're going to be measuring progress for both the long-term and the short-term goals? What are the parameters that you're going to be paying attention to? When you know what to look for, you tend to find it. So get the clarity on that before you get started. What are going to be some markers of progress on

Starting point is 00:15:36 your long-term goal? What are all the micro milestones you want to reach along the way? And what is the progress you want to see on your current and urgent projects? The more clarity you have, the better. You might also want to have clarity on the boundaries, the healthy boundaries you want to put in place for yourself. That is really important. How are you going to protect your mental health from perfectionism as you pursue both the long-term and the short-term goals?

Starting point is 00:16:08 be on the lookout for emotions that might derail your work in the practice room and have a strategy of what you're going to do if you feel this way if you're starting to get frustrated because of the progress on changing your left hand position isn't happening quickly enough what are you going to do are you going to change exercise are you going to move on to another piece are you going to take a deep breath? What is going to be the strategies that you're going to put in place to protect your mental health? And don't forget to bring joy along with you in the practice room, because if you never enjoy yourself, you're not going to keep going. So ask yourself, what lights you up? What makes playing and practicing fun? And make sure you do some of

Starting point is 00:17:03 that as well in the practice room. Play things you want to play. Improvise. Say yes to projects that really fuel you. So remember, get clarity and compartmentalize your priorities. And the key to succeeding with this is all about managing expectations and perfectionism. There's something called the fresh start effect. And this term was coined by behavioral scientists, Catherine Milkman, Heng-Shen Dai, and Jason Rees, and they use it to describe how some significant dates like New Year's or birthdays motivate people to break from past failures and recommit to goals. So it's not just you, it's all of us.

Starting point is 00:17:53 and it can be great in itself but oftentimes it creates a big problem we're excited and we want things to feel different and we want them to feel different right away we want to be different right away but that's not how it works so every note that's not exactly what you want in the practice room you resent it and that builds up frustration and disappointment and then you start to lose motivation and this is when you start to give up. So managing expectations is so important. I'm probably gonna have a whole episode

Starting point is 00:18:34 about this very soon. But for now, remember this, knowing what your expectations are and making sure they're serving you and that they're realistic is one of the most powerful thing you can do for yourself. When you sit down to practice, be honest about what's possible today. Not what you'd like to be possible, but what's actually

Starting point is 00:18:58 available to you in this moment with your current skills, your current time and energy. Because I see too many musicians suffer because of this. Yes, you can dream big and hope for a lot and grow and learn a lot over a period of time. But today, you need to be where you are. Respect where you are. Not where you should be, not where you wish you were, but where you are right now. And when you do that, you have more patience.

Starting point is 00:19:36 You're more meticulous. You stay focused on the process and on the daily progress and your unrealistic expectations don't sabotage that progress and that applies to long-term and short-term goals by the way so if today you're learning a piece and it's messy or clunky or slower than you'd like that's not failure that's part of the process and the important thing is that you showed up, you made intentional choices, and you moved forward. Because long-term goals grow through repeated attention. Short-term goals unfold through daily work. And both require that we stay grounded in reality, not fantasy. So remember, patience

Starting point is 00:20:32 and love for the process that's key and when we practice with respect for where we are we build confidence momentum and trust and that changes everything another thing I really want to highlight before we wrap this up is that perfectionism loves to sneak in especially when expectations get muddy, when we expect ourselves to be further along, or we expect ourselves to play something perfectly right now. That's when the pressure really builds and we start tightening up mentally and physically. We stop seeing what's working and we miss the progress that we're making. I see too many musicians, colleagues, and clients back out of performances or not taking auditions or saying no to opportunities because of this. Even at the

Starting point is 00:21:29 practice level, students and clients that don't want to record themselves or play mock performances because of that. And then they rub themselves of the growth that they would have gained from those experiences. They rub themselves of a crucial part of the process. But the worst part is how it impacts our self-esteem and our confidence. Perfectionism convinces us that anything less than ideal means we're behind or not good enough. And that's just not true. And it's not helpful. And it's not accurate. When you set the bar too high, it sends your brain in dysregulation. so again you can dream big for sure in the long term but set realistic goals in the short term and extremely important develop the habit of noticing all of the small improvements and all

Starting point is 00:22:33 of the small victories along the way and celebrate them celebrate yourself appreciate your effort it. Appreciate your dedication and your growth. When you do that, you create a positive loop that fuels your motivation to stay engaged with the process. So big dreams, reasonable milestones along the way. I mean, maybe they're still a stretch, but they're not a rupture. and tangible, achievable goals daily. What actually creates results, and I'm sure you've heard this before, right, is showing up consistently, doing the best that we can with what we have that day and letting that be enough. That's what builds momentum. It's not some deep secret. That's what leads to mastery. So let's not chase perfection. Let's choose presence

Starting point is 00:23:35 and process instead. And speaking of process, I want to add this caveat about being process-minded and it's to not be rigid about what your idea of the process will look like. What I mean by this is that I often see people wanting a perfect process. They want it to look really organized and really neat. And they're very specific in how they want it to unfold. They want it to unfold like clockwork. That's not what processes look like usually in real life. It can be messy.

Starting point is 00:24:19 It usually is messy. You try something and it doesn't work the way you think it's going to work. So if you're attached to it working a very specific way, if you're attached to a perfect process, that's going to throw you off. Because all of a sudden, you're going to think your process is wrong. It's not the case. That's the process. So remain flexible. You have a plan, you have an idea of how things are going to go, and you go on about executing

Starting point is 00:24:56 it to the best of your ability, for sure. But as you experiment, certain things are going to emerge that are going to take you by surprise. You want to be able to receive that information and use it and maybe tweak your process, maybe change the entire process. so don't get caught in perfectionism of process either that's another way that perfectionism shows up and sabotages our process in our progress so the process is going to be what it's going to be remember to be flexible a plan is always just a starting point and we want to follow it as much as possible, if possible, but it might need tweaking along the way. It probably will. And flexibility is a huge asset in the pursuit of any goal. So develop this flexibility. It's a great

Starting point is 00:26:03 gift to yourself. So start with a draft of what you think it's going to be like, but then deal with the reality you are creating as you're creating it. Does that make sense? So I want to leave you with this. You're not behind. You're not failing if you don't sound perfect today. And you're definitely not doing it wrong if you decide to postpone one goal in order to fully show up for another. You're a human being with limited time, energy, and attention. And mastery means making intentional choices. So next time you sit down to practice, ask yourself, what does success look like for me today? What's the goal that's going to serve me best right now? How can I attend to both my long-term goals and current needs effectively

Starting point is 00:27:06 today? This keeps you anchored in what actually matters. And let that be enough. All right, that's what I have for you today. If this episode helped you rethink your approach to practice, I would love to hear about it. Tag me on Instagram at mindoverfinger or send me an email at mindoverfinger at gmail.com and let me know what season you're in right now. And if you're ready to take your practice, your performing to the next level with personalized support, don't forget to check out the Music Mastery Experience. It's my favorite space. and in there we do deep intentional work like this every day. You can book a free consult with me at mindoverfinger.com slash mme. Thank you so much for listening. I'll see you next time

Starting point is 00:28:05 on the Mind Over Finger podcast. A bientot! and there you have it thank you so much for spending this time with me today if you enjoyed this episode i'd love it if you'd share with your friends and colleagues take a screenshot post it on social media and tag me i'm mind over finger everywhere i always love hearing your favorite takeaways. And if you're ready to take your playing career to the next level, I'd love to invite you to join the Music Mastery Experience. This is my signature group coaching program where we're going to dive deep into building your confidence and mastery and set you up for success and fulfillment in your life and career. You can find all the details

Starting point is 00:28:57 at mindoverfinger.com. While you're there, check out the free downloads and online courses available to support your journey even further. And don't forget to subscribe to my newsletter so you never miss an update or a tool to help you thrive. Again, thank you for being here. Until next time, much love and à bientôt! Thank you.

The Mind Over Finger Podcast - 245 Long-Term Growth vs. Short-Term Pressure: Why Trying to Master Everything Is Slowing You Down and How to Fix It

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.