Life Is Better as a Practice
A reframing hack to ease stress in both the little things and big things of life
Discovering the Power of “Practice”
A recent discovery in my life—even, you might say, a hack I’ve hit on—is that everything I do feels better when I reframe it as a practice.
What do I mean by “practice”? Like a “meditation practice” or an “exercise practice,” a practice is something I do:
for the value that comes from the doing of it, rather than for a certain outcome or result
as a discipline, rather than an accomplishment
by choosing via long-term thinking rather than momentary appetite
with a mindset of just trying, rather than insisting on certain results
Writing Practice
For example, my writing life improved dramatically when, a few years ago, I began to see it as a practice rather than a performance or accomplishment. The goal was not:
“sit down, write, and make a great novel come out”
but rather:
“sit down, set a timer, and try to add some words to my story.”
And suddenly, there was calm and steadiness where before had been chaos, and my writing life grew and blossomed. (Among other things, I wrote 90,000 words of a novel before deciding to put it on hold and work on some children’s stories that had been boiling over on my inner stove; I’m still working on those now.)
On any given day, I can just do my writing practice, no matter what I’m feeling or what the results are in terms of word count or quality. And thus I can keep momentum going with my writing project, and—more importantly—keep my inner flame burning (that is, keep my soul fed, keep my creative juices flowing, keep my inner child happy, and so on).
One Word at a Time, One Stitch at a Time
It has occurred to me that writing a novel is very much like knitting a scarf (another thing I enjoy doing): it can only be done one bit at a time over a long period of time—one word at a time, one stitch at a time. It’s not:
“let me sit down and get this done”
but:
“I have a few minutes and can work on this a little more now”
—and then, eventually, after lots of those little sessions of work, it gets done.
Everything as a Practice
I’ve begun applying that same concept to life in general; and wherever I apply it, calm replaces chaos, and empowerment replaces victimhood. Thinking of something as a practice instantly shifts the mindset from something I have to do and that I feel stress or pressure about, to something I am choosing to do and just aiming to do the best I can, not to be perfect or get certain results.
Indeed, even life itself can be a practice, in that way: I can view it not as something I am forced into and now have to endure, nor as something I must control to make it go the right way, but something that I choose to show up for as best I can every day, whatever it brings. (This also helps me with anxiety about things way beyond my control, such as stuff in the news.)
Sometimes it’s just this general mindset shift that helps me move away from anxiety-mind to practice-mind, with self-talk such as (these actual quotes from my journals):
“I can only go one thing at a time, working within the parameters life gives me at any given moment.”
“Each moment is all there is; I don’t have to know the path ahead. Just keep taking my best guess in each moment, and I will find my way.”
“The practice is the thing—don’t focus on outcomes; just keep trying to do the practices I’m working on.”
“All I have to do is respond to the facts of each moment as they come. I do not have to control anything (and indeed I can’t).”
But wherever I can get more specific, I get more benefit. This may seem a little overboard, but seriously, these are a bunch of areas of my life that thinking of as a practice has significantly helped me with:
Bills and mail practice
Job practice
Marriage-tending practice
Childcare practice
Pet-care practice
Exercise practice
Tidying practice
Preparedness practice
Reaching out practice
Solitude practice
And the most visibly transformative one:
“Feeding practice”
This has been a major one for me. Cooking is something I have struggled with for years; it drains and overwhelms me, even to make very simple dishes. (This makes more sense since realizing I’m probably on the autism spectrum, considering the sensory issues, complex decisions, and social expectations involved with cooking.)
Thankfully, my husband enjoys cooking and is great at it, so he usually takes on this task for us. But when he’s not home, I have been desperately needing a better way than my default of waiting till the last minute, panicking, and fixing something quick and easy that I know the kids will eat but that isn’t all that nutritious (like mac n’ cheese).
I’ve tried different systems and meal plans over the years, but I never felt any true light on this issue until recently, when I realized I needed to think of feeding us as a practice, rather than just something that has to get done. Ohhh! That I know how to do!
So now I think of fixing us food as a practice—I call it “feeding practice”—and things are so much better. When it’s a practice:
It’s something I choose to do because I believe it’s important, rather than something I just have to do that feels like an endless recurring series of drudgery, frustration, and failure.
I can give my attention to it with intentionality and planning ahead, because I’m operating by choice and discipline rather than my feelings in the moment (which never want to do it, and so will avoid it until the last minute and then panic, etc.).
The important thing is the doing of it, rather than the result—so if I try and then fail, it’s okay. Sometimes that happens, and we’ll figure it out. No stress, just calm and compassion!
What about you?
What areas of your life might benefit from your thinking of them in terms of a practice? I would genuinely love to hear (especially now that I’m on Substack and it’s so well set up for reader interaction!).
And by the way, thank you to all of you dear (and in some cases, longtime and even long-lost) friends who have signed up here to read my writing. My heart is full of love for you!