The Practicing Mind: Developing Focus and Discipline in Your Life — Master Any Skill or Challenge by Learning to Love the Process

In those times when we want to acquire a new skill or face a formidable challenge we hope to overcome, what we need most are patience, focus, and discipline, traits that seem elusive or difficult to maintain. In this enticing and practical book, Thomas Sterner demonstrates how to learn skills for any aspect of life, from golfing to business to parenting, by learning to love the process.

Early life is all about trial-and-error practice. If we had given up in the face of failure, repetition, and difficulty, we would never have learned to walk or tie our shoes. So why, as adults, do we often give up on a goal when at first we don’t succeed? In his study of how we learn (prompted by his pursuit of disciplines such as music and golf), Sterner has found that we have forgotten the principles of practice — the process of picking a goal and applying steady effort to reach it. The methods Sterner teaches show that practice done properly isn’t drudgery on the way to mastery but a fulfilling process in and of itself, one that builds discipline and clarity.

• Fully Engaged: Using the Practicing Mind in Daily Life
• The Practice of Practice: How to Boost Your Music Skills
• First, Learn to Practice
• Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones
• The Passion Paradox: A Guide to Going All In, Finding Success, and Discovering the Benefits of an Unbalanced Life
• A Manual for Living (Little Book of Wisdom (Harper San Francisco))
• The Talent Code: Greatness Isn't Born. It's Grown. Here's How.
• The Musician's Way: A Guide to Practice, Performance, and Wellness
• CREATOR
• We Can't Talk about That at Work!: How to Talk about Race, Religion, Politics, and Other Polarizing Topics