Do you practice weekly... or weakly?

During Mass today, our Deacon gave a great homily, telling a story about a priest who once asked him if he practices his faith weekly... or weakly?

I won’t make this post about religion, but it got me thinking about other aspects of our lives.?

Some of us are on sports teams.??Some of us are teachers, coaches, leaders, laborers, drivers, retailers, wholesalers, etc… The list goes on and on.??No matter who you are or what you do, do you practice improving your craft weekly........... or weakly?

We often preach to others about focusing on their own personal development.??In fact, if you’re a parent, you probably (like me) do this nightly with your student children, ensuring they’ve completed their assignments and focused on completing their homework.??But, what about us???What did we do tonight or this week to improve our craft???Did we pick up a new book???Did we take a Masterclass, or attend an industry conference???Maybe we wrote an article to be published or a few more chapters of a book we’re working on.??Or maybe we didn’t…

I read an article recently that said if we practiced our craft (piano, business, tennis, programming, etc…) for just 100 minutes every week, we would be better than 95% of the population at that craft.??100 minutes divided by 7 days is only 14.28 minutes/day.

So, if we each studied or practiced the one or two things that we’re most passionate about for just 15 minutes every day, we’d be better than 95% of the people in the world in that particular subject or topic.??Wow.??

That makes sense.??I took drum lessons as a kid.??The lessons were 30 minutes/week and my teacher would expect me to practice for at least 90 minutes/week on my own.??(120 mins total)

By the time I was sixteen, I was competing in state championships.??I even won a scholarship for one full year of lessons at the Springfield Community School of Music in Springfield, MA when I was only about twelve years old.??

Many other children play sports and have two or three 60 minutes practices/week.??(120-180 mins total)

It seems that music teachers and youth sports coaches have it figured out.

So, I’ll ask one more time.??Do you practice the craft that you’re most passionate about weekly...

or weakly???