What Do We Mean by Daily Practice?

This is the second of a series of posts on the psychological and practical benefits of daily practice. (Read the first post here.) In this series, I’ll explore the elements of daily practice, varieties of daily practice, challenges to daily practice, and strategies for meeting those challenges. Please join me in learning more about this important subject: Complete information can be found in The Power of Daily Practice.

When someone says that she maintains a spiritual practice, we have an intuitive sense of what that person means and what that practice might entail. We envision her engaging in certain activities in a ceremonial way, whether that is lighting candles or sitting meditatively. We expect that she spends a certain amount of time every day, probably first thing each morning, formally engaged with her practice. And we picture her practice informing all aspects of her life, such that, for instance, when a crisis occurs, she uses her belief set (about an afterlife, say) and her techniques (like prayer or meditation) to see her through the crisis.

Likewise, if someone tells us that he is training for a marathon, a prize fight, or a high-altitude climb, we immediately get a picture of what that likely includes. We expect that he exercises every day, even on days that he doesn’t want to; that he watches his diet and passes on the hot fudge sundaes, even though he craves them; and that he visualizes success and in other ways talks himself into the right frame of mind. We picture him taking charge of his mind and his body and engaging in a goal-oriented process that naturally includes pushing himself in ways that, on many days, he hates.

Martial artists provide us with another model. We picture their formality: the way they bow when they enter the martial arts studio and when they face an opponent before a match. We picture their intensity: the way they shout, the way they drive themselves, the way they focus on a given move and a given routine. We picture the value system by which they operate, which revolves around the honorable use of force and which sanctifies self-control, including the self-control to walk away rather than to fight.

Then there’s the path of the dedicated thinker, someone who lives for intellectual problems to solve and whose main meaning investments have to do with unraveling the laws of the universe, finding cures for diseases, or inventing ever-better mousetraps. We picture a self-directed person who takes it upon himself to pick his path, even if it runs counter to the path his peers are following, to bite into his problem as a starving man bites into a sandwich, and to demonstrate a resolve and tenacity that is sometimes punctuated by joyous shrieks of “Eureka!” when, periodically, the right answers come.

And what if someone tells us that she has spent a lifetime battling for the release of political prisoners? In our mind’s eye, we see her engaged in a dedicated, daily way, in the face of setbacks and indifference, with an enterprise that she feels is important and that is the way she wants to be spending her time on earth. We don’t picture her smiling much; we don’t picture her activist life punctuated by a great many successes; but we understand why she is bringing every ounce of fortitude she can muster to this enterprise.

And what if we met a woman at a cocktail party and learned that she had written and had published twenty novels and thirty nonfiction books? Certain thoughts about how she must live her life would immediately spring to mind. We would picture her chatting easily and regularly—maybe even every day—with marketplace players like agents, editors, and publicists. We would see her attending book signings, giving interviews, and traveling in support of her books. If she somehow contrived to avoid all of that, we would still be pretty sure about the following: that whatever else she did or didn’t do on a given day, she would be doing some writing.

Don’t we have a pretty good intuitive sense of what daily practice looks like? I bet you have that intuitive sense, too. And that will stand you in good stead when and if you decide to institute one or more daily practices of your own! You already know what to do—next comes the doing.

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Previously published on Psychologytoday.com.

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