True mastery comes when the gifted passionately practice. You can become real good at any number of things if you passionately practice, but unless you discover a talent, unless you find that you are blessed with a gift, you won't become world class, Those who do discover their gift, and then passionately practice with it, will have too big of an advantage.
In creating mastery, or in at least becoming the best you can be, it is important to understand the Mastery Curve. This starts with the concept that practice does not make perfect, only perfect practice makes perfect. Practicing a bad golf swing does not turn it into a good golf swing. You have to practice doing it right.
This is best done but getting a mentor, a teacher a, coach, a pro. Get someone who knows how to help other people discover their potential. Learn how to do it right.
Then you practice. For example with golf, you get out on the driving range and you hit golf balls. You don't practice golf when you are playing golf. There is a big difference between practicing and performing. When you practice you attempt to be better than you currently are, to improve. When you perform, you endeavor to be the best you currently are, to create a peak performance, and the highest likelihood of coming in first, or winning.
So you practice golf on the driving range or the practice putting green. With the swing you've developed, you hit golf balls. Now you're going to hit some bad shots. Even the greatest golfers hit some bad shots. When you hit a bad shot, you take a deep breath and then release your breath, your muscle tension, and the bad shot, with the sense of relief that you got rid of that one. Feeling good that you got that bad shot out of your system. Another deep breath adds to the endorphin rush as you realize that you really enjoy having and releasing bad shots.
Because, if you don't enjoy your bad shots you won't enjoy practicing enough, to practice enough, to become the best you can be. When you practice, you have to enjoy your bad shots and you have to enjoy your good shots.
When you hit a good shot, you take a deep breath, close your eyes, and re-create that good shot over and over and over again in your mind. Do your best to remember and imagine it with all five of your senses. Let yourself experience the confidence, the pride, the excitement. When you repeatedly practice it in your mind, one good shot becomes a dozen good shots, or two dozen, or more.
So passionately practice, releasing the bad shots, and reinforcing the good shots. Do this and you will continually get better. You will keep getting better, until at some point, you will hit a plateau. Even though you are still passionately practicing, you have stopped getting better. This will happen. When it does you must continue to passionately practice. You must avoid doing the three things that most people do when they hit a plateau.
Quit. Some people think that because they have stopped getting better, that golf just isn't their game, so they'll go try tennis.
Stress. Some get frustrated and others get furious, when even though they continue to practice, they don't improve. As they get stressed, their performance degrades, which causes them even more stress.
Settle. Frequently what happens at plateau is people think, well this is about as good as I'm going to get, so now I can stop practicing so much and just play golf.
When you hit a plateau, just keep practicing. At some point something will occur to you to do better, and then you'll start growing again.
This process will continue until you've reached your potential
Focus brings to bear the power of the conscious mind, and Passion brings to bear the power of the subconscious mind. When the two minds come together in harmony, something magical happens. They create a third mind; a higher consciousness. This is literally a second level of thinking. With Focused Passion, all the power is in the second level of thinking. You get to think about your individual thoughts and feelings, and choose to empower the positive ones, and choose to release the negative ones. In this way you come to enjoy all of your thoughts and all of your feelings. Do this and you will discover that there is a side effect. It is called happiness. Happiness is not about your particular circumstances. Happiness is not about your initial thoughts. Happiness comes from what you think, about what you think.
Here is a simple and powerful technique for creating the state of Focused Passion. Focus comes when you move away from stress, just a little of the way toward sleep. Passion comes when you enjoy what you are doing.
Focus Passion is moving from divided attention (multi-tasking) to paying attention to just one special thing. Do this and you slow down your mind. You move toward stress when you feel endangered. To move into Focused Passion you need to feel safe.
Close your eyes.
Most of the input that comes in through your five senses comes in through your eyes. Close your eyes and you slow down your mind. It's the first thing you do when you want to fall asleep. Focused Passion can be reached with your eyes open, but closing your eyes cuts out many of the potential distractions.
Take a deep breath and imagine that you are in a very safe and peaceful place.
By making this safe place, a place that you love to be, you add passion to your state of focus. When you feel stressed you tighten your muscles and hold your breath. Release your muscle tension and let go of your breath and you will begin to feel safe. Choose this place with your intuition. Let it be the first safe place that comes in to your mind. Imagine that you can see this place, or that you can hear the surrounding sounds. Simply pretend and get the feeling that you are there. If your mind goes off to a different place, just notice this and then bring yourself back to your first place. Always return to this same place each time you wish to re-create this state of Focused Passion.
With Focused Passion you can solve the only two problems that you face. One problem is that you know what you want, but you don't know how to get it, and the only other problem is that you don't know what you want.
When you don't know what you want, you go to your place of Focused Passion and you ask. Then you listen for the answer. This is called meditation, introspection, reflection, or prayer. If you believe in a higher power then you might believe that the answer comes through you. If you don't believe in a higher power then you might believe that the answer comes from you. Either way the process is the same. You ask, and then you listen for the answer.
If you do know what you want, then you tell. You imagine what you do want, as if you already have it, over and over again, with GREAT PASSION! This is called mental programming, visualization, self-hypnosis, or auto-suggestion. It is an application of the amazingly powerful law of attraction.
