Mindset Reset: Keeping the Play in Your Playing - PHH 068

Welcome to Practicing Harp Happiness, the Harp Mastery Podcast. My name is Ann Sullivan and I'm a harpist, teacher, and founder of Harp Mastery. I'm all about creating more harp happiness in the world by helping harp players like you play the music they want the way they want. But as a harpist who nearly flunked out of one of the most prestigious music schools in the world, I, although later not only graduated, but I went on to teach there. I know from personal experience that learning the harp is way harder than it looks. Here, each week on the Practicing Harp Happiness Podcast, I show you how to solve the challenges of practicing and playing the harp. Whether it's about making your fingers behave or learning music faster, or getting your piece's performance ready, or just learning to enjoy your playing every day. Sounds great, doesn't it? Let's get started. Welcome to the show. Today is Labor Day in the United States. The very first Labor Day was celebrated exactly 140 years ago today on September 5, 1882. It was intended as a holiday for the general working population in recognition of their contributions to the country's prosperity, prosperity, and strength. At that time, it was decided that the celebrations should include a parade to showcase the trade and labor unions and a picnic for the workers and their families. Now, today, 140 years later, Labor Day celebrations still include picnics and parades. Labor Day also marks the traditional end of summer holidays and the beginning of a new school year. The idea of Labor Day to celebrate work and toil and to take a break from it is a powerful one, and one that I would like to suggest has application to our heart. Playing. That's the key word today. Playing. We work so hard to make our playing what we want it to be, what we think it should be. By contrast, how much time do we take to celebrate our hard work or even to simply enjoy playing the harp? What if our harp journey was more about playing, about the joy of music, and less about the drudgery we associate with practice? Now, I'm not suggesting that you stop practicing, although I do want you to enjoy your Labor Day picnic today. What I suggest is that we make a mindset shift that we can bring to our practice every single day. Our harp practice is the consistent habit that leads to our growth as harpists. But that doesn't mean it can't be fun, too. So today we're going to talk about how to turn your practice mindset into a play mindset. I have 10 quick and easy tips that you can use to reshape your approach so that you can play instead of just practice. And in fact, you'll be able to practice with your focus on the positive instead of the negative. I'm going to help you learn to celebrate your playing, even when the going is tough. Now, before we get talking about playing, I want to stress the importance of habit here. You know that I think the most important thing about your practice is that it's consistent, that it is a habit that is just part of what you do. Because consistent practice is what makes consistent results. And it's truly the path to harp happiness, no matter what kind of harp playing you want to do. But being consistent can be difficult, especially when it's a journey that you're just taking all by yourself, which is one of the things that's so powerful about having a coach. So, yes, I'm reminding you that our coaching registration for this session is still open at the time I'm recording this. We still have a number of slots available for you to take advantage of working with one of our certified coaches, but I can't guarantee how long those spots are going to be there. Our registration closes one week from today on September 12, and the session starts September 19. And what happens in our coaching program to kick off your coaching experiences? You hop on a planning call with me and we set out goals for your coaching term. And this is the power of our coaching. It's not just lessons, it's goal oriented. So we decide what you want to work on, what you want to do, what the most important things are for you to do now, to be able to accomplish what you want to. And our coaches are there to help you stay consistent.

In that goal, in that quest for your goal, right in that path to where you want to go. So we like to think of our coaches as providing three big things. I mean, yes, they're wonderful harp instructors and wonderful people, but they do three specific things for you. They are a compass. They help you find the right direction and stay oriented to that direction. So that for the 12 week sprint of our coaching session, you're not getting off track, you're not distracting yourself, you're really focusing your efforts. And then they challenge you. They challenge you to take that step that you want to take and to work just that extra little bit toward it. Not in the sense of working harder, but definitely working smarter and really believing that you can achieve. Because if they believe in you, why shouldn't you believe in you, right? And then they are also there to celebrate you. They are there to help you when you need help. They're there to support you all along the way. They are your champion. So that's, you know, that's the power of our coaching program. The compass, the challenge, and the champion. And that's what you'll feel like when you get through the coaching program. Most of our students do. Many of them sign up and have signed up for multiple sessions. It's powerful work and it's a great habit to have, and I guarantee it'll make your playing fun. So speaking of fun, let's talk about how to turn that practice mindset into a playing mindset so you can have more fun every day. I sort of got off to a serious kind of start in the discussion, in the introduction. And the idea of today is to play and to have fun. So let's turn instead to a quote by one of the masters of how to have fun, Walt Disney. And here's an interesting quote from him. He said, it's kind of fun to do the impossible. And you know what? We ask ourselves to do the impossible all the time, right? We ask ourselves to play something without mistakes, to play, you know, better, faster, more musically, all those kinds of things more correctly. That's impossible, to do all those things all the time, at least at peak. But let's find the fun, because I'd like to sort of tweak that little quote. It's kind of fun to try the impossible, right? We can try. We can get there, and that's where the fun is going to be. Now, yes, I know practice can be hard work, but in the spirit of, you know, the spoonful of sugar that helps the medicine go down, here's a quick quote from singer and dancer Paula Abdul. Remember, she has been known not just for her singing and her dancing, but for her fitness program as well. And so here's that little quote from her. Find fitness with fun dancing. It's fun, and it makes you forget about the dreaded exercise. That's kind of what we want here. We want to find the fun in playing, to find the fun even in a practice session, so that you can forget about the hard stuff. Granted, it's still going to be hard, but you're going to be focusing on the fun. And so let me get right into those 10 mindset shifts. There's nothing radical here, and there's nothing that you can't do. Now, some of these, you may be more comfortable doing than others, and that's fine. You don't need to do all of them. But I would suggest that you find one that you particularly like and that you try that in your next practice session. Better yet, write them all down. And then let's, you know, don't write them down now if you're driving, but you can come back and listen to this later. We don't need you to multitask that way. Come back, listen to this later, take some notes, find a few that appeal to you, or write them all down and then try one each day. We're looking for fun. Variety can be kind of fun. Certainly playing well is fun and all of these little tips on will help you play well, not just have more fun in your practice. So are you ready? Here we go. Here's the very first one. And it's going to sound not maybe especially fun, but just think about how this is going to help you shift your mindset. Here it is. Play a tricky passage five times. Okay. It doesn't sound like fun yet. I know, I know. Okay. Play a tricky passage five times, but each time after you've played it, write down what worked about that rather than what you need to fix. Do you see the mindset shift? You see it happening? Right? What we all do is we play that tricky passage. I still missed that fourth finger or whatever it happens to be. Well, okay, we'll go back and we'll fix that fourth finger. But let's take just a second to think about what we did. That was good. All right. I stuck to the tempo. I stayed with the metronome. I got both hands together. I missed the fourth finger, but my thumb was terrific. It was expressive. There are a hundred things that you are doing right in that same passage that you're forgetting to give yourself credit for. And if one of your issues is being too self critical, you're that type A personality and you just want it to be right, You're a perfectionist. Well, let's find the things that you're doing right, they will help you over the things that you're doing wrong. And it's going to make your practice more pleasant. All right, so that was kind of an easy one, I think. All right, let's go just a little further afield. A little bit more on the fun side. Why don't you just play. Play something. Play any piece, play anything. Play something on the harp just because you want to. You want to play a glissando, go for it. You want to play your favorite piece, go for it. You want to sight read something new? Why not? Do you want to just sort of noodle on the harp and just see what happens? My mom used to call that messing Around.

Do it. The funny thing is that every time I messed around on either the harp or the piano, my mother would get word that I wasn't practicing. And my teachers always reminded my mother, if she mentioned it to them, that this was a part of the creativity, the expression, that I wanted to find, the personal quality I wanted to bring to music, and that this exploration was important not just for my growth as a musician, but for my connection to the harp. My fun time. So play something just because you want to, no other reason. Okay, tip number three, Mindset shift. This is another one for all you type A personalities, perfectionist types, self criticizers. Here you go. Create a no judgment time in your practice.

In other words, I want you to create five minutes of your practice where you just play something you can work on, something you can practice, but you can't judge it. You must be totally objective. You can say, oh, wrong note. But you can't blame. You can't judge, you can't assess. You just create a no judgment time. This is a real challenge. But when you can do this, you will find that that mindset around needing to play something correctly, needing it to be right, just shifts a little bit and shifts more toward music instead of toward correctness, instead of toward perfection. We're going to go for the art instead of the impossible ideal. Okay? All right. Number four goes along with this, but this is sort of a more broad brush approach I want you to try in your practice being an observer, not a critic. So we're going to take that five minutes, perhaps where you weren't judging yourself, and we're going to stretch it just a little bit to include all your practice time. And I'm going to ask you to just observe. You don't get to say, arg, that was terrible. You don't get to make faces. You don't get to rant and rave or gnash your teeth or be frustrated. You only can observe, oh, that note was wrong.

That chord wasn't at the right time. That roll was a little too long. I played that out of rhythm. I. You can observe. You can be factual, you can describe what you want to correct, but there's no right or wrong. There's no judgment. There's just. There's no blame. Perhaps that's better than saying, no, right or wrong. Right. You can say something is incorrect, but you can't say it was bad.

You understand the difference now, right? Try being an observer, not a critic.

Okay, number five. Try using an affirming statement at the beginning and end. Of each practice session. Now, my personal affirming statements don't have very much to do with what I can do. They have more to do with what I want my music to be.

So that starting a practice session to say, okay, I'm going to make this really beautiful. I'm going to really love playing this piece today. I don't even necessarily use the word practice. I mean, that's what I'm doing. But practice can be a habit, right? And my habit is sitting down at the harp. So if I'm working on.

You know, the gleere impromptu, let's just pull a piece out of the. Out of the air here so, you know, I can sit down and say, ah, I'm going to really enjoy playing the gleere today. And then when I get up from the harp, ah, that was fun. Playing the glee today.

Now, this may seem like a nothing to you, and that's kind of the point. It's a nothing. It's so simple to do. But think about the change that it can make. When you are starting your practice session with the idea that something is going to be great, it's going to be fun, it's going to be exciting, it's going to be enjoyable. You're really going to love it. And then when you get up from your practice session saying that it was great, that it was fun, that it was enjoyable, that you loved it, what a difference that makes than getting up from your practice session saying, wow, that was hard work. I don't know. Tomorrow I'm going to have to do this, this, this.

And do you know, before you get up off that heart bench, make your plan for tomorrow. Be sure you know what you want work on, but then affirm the fun that you had that day. Now, if you want to use a different kind of affirmation statement, that's great, but let's find one that talks about fun, that talks about.

The beauty of music, the joy that you find in music. Let's try something like that. And at the beginning and the end, my friend, Very important.

Okay, now, those have been pretty simple. They may not be quite so easy to do. Some of them you may not be quite so comfortable with. But remember that the idea here is to try to not make practice more important than the music. Right? Practice isn't the goal. It's just the means to an end the music. Our goal. And maybe goal is too serious a word. Music is where our heart lives, and that's where we need to keep our focus. Okay, so let's talk about some More different kinds of ways to inject some fun, some play into your daily practice. Why not take your harp outdoors to practice? Okay. You're not going to do it in every kind of weather, but if you can just. If it's a beautiful day, take your harp out on your deck, in your backyard, on your front porch, and just do some of your practice there. What a great way to be inspired to, you know. All right, maybe you live in a place that wouldn't support that, but if you can't go outside, maybe you could light a candle in your practice room or put party lights around and turn those party lights on. Whatever you want to do, create an environment that inspires you. An environment that's fun. You can do all kinds of things, right? And you can change it up all the time if you keep it simple. Just have fun.

I know. Easier. Easier to do, right? This one. Just have fun with your practice. Create the environment you want.

The next one's just as simple. This is.

A really important one, and it's a big mindset. Shift. Let's watch our language, right? And I'm not talking about four letter words, except for this one. I want you to stop using the word half. Have, right? H, A, V, E. You don't have to practice. You get to practice. Ooh. Practice isn't something we are bound. We're not tied to. Tied to it like a galley slave, right? It's a habit, and it's part of what we do. But we don't have to practice. We get to practice. What a treat. What a luxury to be able to spend part of our day creating music on the harp, making our music express.

Our thoughts and our soul even better. Yeah, I know. We're trying to improve, right? And we can include that improvement, that growth as part of what we're doing in our practice. But I'll tell you, I consider it just a gift. Every time I get to sit down and practice, it's a treat for me. And I know it is for you, too. Just remind yourself about it, okay? You don't have to practice. You get to practice.

Profound One, right? That's possibly my favorite of all of these, but I have three more for you. Here's one. I like this one, too. Start and end your day by playing your favorite piece. Now, I'm not talking about starting your practice session and ending your practice session with your favorite piece, although you could certainly do that, too.

But what if you just began your day, you know? Okay, get your first cup of coffee. Or maybe while the coffee's brewing. Sit down at your harp and play your favorite piece.

One you know, well, one you just like doing.

How would that reshape your day? How would that help contribute to the wonderful feeling that you have every time you sit down at the harp? How would that make a hard day go better if that was part of your morning routine to just, you know, sit down and start your day by playing your favorite piece on the harp? You can come back and practice later.

And. Or you could end your day the same way. The last thing you do, maybe, you know, okay, you've done the dishes, you've watched your television show, you're winding down for bed. Maybe that's the time you go to the harp and sit down and play your favorite piece. Because, you know, I'm not a nighttime person, I'm a morning person. So that's not going to be part of my evening routine. But it's kind of fun to have it as part of a morning routine. I don't do this all the time, but I do do it from time to time. And this is. That's a particular technique to start a day with a favorite piece that I use when I'm feeling disconnected or discombobulated or overworked or overwhelmed. Not just about harp playing, but about anything. I'll sit down at the harp and play that one piece that I really like, whatever it happens to be at the moment. And there it is. It's a great start to the day.

And it's fun.

Okay, here's the next one. It's easy to say, harder to do. Catch yourself doing something right and journal it.

Once again. If you look at your practice journal, for most people now, I know not for all people. And I. And I know that our coaching students, just like my gold circle students, are better at doing this than some others who haven't had that kind of training. But in your practice journal, take a look at it and how much of your practice journal is filled with needs to do, must do, need to correct this was. This is still too slow. I need to move this.

What if in your practice journal, in addition to whatever else you wanted to write, you also at the end of your practice session, just journaled something wonderful that you did that day. Ha. I made great progress on these measures. I really played that beautifully. I really enjoyed doing this. Today, let's have your practice journal include the positive. Now, granted, you'll see that that's kind of related to the very first one we talked about, right? Play that tricky passage and then write down what worked there's no magic here. No, you know, nothing secret about how to create a positive mindset. And so this is part of it. When you look for the good, not just in other people, which we're always supposed to do too, right, but the good in what you do, and make a note of it, you'll be able to relax into what you do. You'll be able to find the fun. You'll be taking the.

Negative thoughts away from what you do and replacing them with positive thoughts. So it's really important. And that's why I kind of used that not only as the first one, but also here, later down the list. I do have one more tip for you, and it's possibly the most important one, but it's the hardest one to do unless you've practiced some of the other happy playtime practices as well, the ones that we've talked about earlier. So this could be the hardest one to do if you haven't put those pieces in place for yourself. But here it is. Enjoy the journey. Right? Harp playing, learning to play the harp, learning a particular piece, it's all a process. It's not the pursuit of perfection. It's the process. Don't ask the impossible of yourself. Just instead imagine what's possible. Explore the possible. Don't be afraid to be uncomfortable, and never be afraid to be wrong.

We can have happy accidents instead of notes that are wrong, incorrect.

We want to take that negative away from it. Imagine the things that can happen if you just let yourself enjoy this process. And this is something you can and should be doing every day.

So here's sort of a summary of all of these things.

Don't just practice the things you can't do. Practice the things you can do. Ooh, right. What can you do? That's what we've talked about in all of this. Looking for the things that you can can do, not looking for the things that are still challenging or still seem beyond you. So don't just practice the things you can't do, but remember to practice the things you can do. That's how to attain mastery, and it's the only path to enjoying your music every day.

Okay, now, I didn't. I hope I didn't get too deep here for you, because the idea is to have fun. However you have fun in your playing, every day is terrific. You do you, as they say now. So your heart playing needs to be an expression of you, and you need to do it your way. Anything that isn't working for you now is part of that growth process. And you're going to figure stuff out as you go along. Don't let what isn't working for you bog you down. Find those things that do work and do more of them while you keep, you know, working at the other stuff. Nobody says you don't have to work, and certainly I'm not going to tell you that you don't have to practice. Practice is just the habit of sitting down and playing every day. And naturally we want to play things better, whatever better means for you.

But it's not about being better. It's about the playing and it's about you. It's about the journey. And that's what I want you to bring to your playing every day. Remember, you don't have to practice. Right? You get to practice. Okay, enough of the lecture. Now, I know that this has been.

Perhaps more inspiration than you needed on a Labor Day, but you know what? I hope it has motivated you to take five minutes and just go to the harp and enjoy those five minutes, however you want to enjoy them. That's your action step for today. And then when you've completed that, if you haven't already, go ahead and investigate our coaching. Sign up for it while there are still spots. I'm hoping that by the time this podcast goes live, we still have some spots available for you. You can find the coaching page at heart mastery heartmastery.com under our programs or heartmastery.com coaching will get you there, too, and I will look forward to talking with you on a planning call if coaching is what you decide to do. So that is certainly one way to find the process and to have our coaches help you have fun along the way. So it's not a, you know, it's not, it's certainly work, but that doesn't mean we can't have fun, too. Next week on the podcast, we'll be talking with one of my favorite tech experts in our certified coaching group.

Our certified coach, Christina Finch, will be talking with you about how to tabletize your music. All right, many of you love to use your iPads or other.

Electronic tablets for reading your music, and she's got some great hints and tips for how to do that, and we're going to be sharing those with you on next week's podcast. If you're experienced at the tech, you're going to find some wonderful new things that you haven't explored before that are going to be great tips. And if you're new to the process, we'll be able to walk you through that step by step. So join us next week for how to tabletize your music. And remember, in the meantime, every day is a day you can add more harp happiness to the universe, to your world, and to your spirit. And to go along with today's podcast, all you have to do is play. All right, Happy Labor Day, everybody, and I will look forward to talking with you right here next week. Thanks for tuning into another episode of the Practicing Harp Happiness Podcast. I release a new episode every Monday morning so you can hit your practice week running. Until then, remember to practice your harp happiness every day. See you next time.