I’ve never attended a single organized basketball practice.
All I’ve ever done is play pick-up games and practiced on my own based on what I could come up with from previous game experiences.
Contrast this with those who only attend organized basketball practices and sit the bench for games or rarely ever play games and I’d say the former leads to faster learning than the latter.
…Which isn’t to say organized practices aren’t important.
It’s merely to say that when given the choice between play and learn from experience or practice until you feel ready to play… the former wins in what you can learn given equal time.
…Which is the case for how it works in life too, isn’t it?
Spend too much time planning and you’ll miss the crucial experiences that’ll lead to expedited growth. Things like failing, losing, messing up, missing, fouling, and so on… things that’ll lead to potent emotional experiences that’ll intensify the training and follow-up gaming.
Practicing is safe. There’s much less on the line. Which means there’s proportionally much less emotional energy being invested into the work.
Again, this isn’t to say ignore organized practice. Because the ultimate is the happy balance of the both. But, err too far on the side of caution when it comes to experiential learning and you’ll miss out on so much that you could potentially stand to gain.
Inner Work Prompt: What have you been spending a lot of time planning? Could you stand to learn more, faster by just doing instead?