In our primary school, coloring books, thought books, in the speech of great scholars, our high school etc. etc. etc… We all have been hearing the phrase “PRACTICE MAKES A MAN PERFECT”.
It has been a week since I joined my new job (actually, my first ever job!) and what I learned in the first week was: “Practice would make me perfect”. And then I realized, be it any job- customer service, business development, teaching, or the sales job; you have to practice in order to become perfect and master your job.
And then suddenly, the Science student inside me woke up and I became hungry enough to find out why and how practice would change the chemicals flowing inside my brain!
And here is how it works:
We all know that neurons are the basic unit of the cellular building of our brain. If you don’t know this then I think you need to repeat your 5th standard 😛😛. And then there is a white matter that fills nearly 50% of our brains. That white stuff is myelin, a fatty tissue that covers much of the axons which are the ends of neurons. Now the main point is how is all this related to practicing and our brain?
So, when we practice, we trigger a pattern of electrical signals through our neurons. Over time, that triggers some specific cells to myelinate those axons, increasing the speed and strength of the signal. It enhances the ability which further leads to better performance.
It tells us why not only the QUANTITY of practice is important to improve your skill as it causes repetition of the same nerve impulses again and again to activate the myelinated function, but also the QUALITY of the practice. So you have to make corrections every time you practice so that you don’t spend time practicing the wrong thing! If we do not correct our mistakes, we will myelinate those axons, increasing the speed and strength of those signals – which does us no good.
Now we know why and also how “Practice makes us perfect!” 🙂
And remember…
So keep on practicing… and you will surely become perfect one day!
