On Practice, Practices, and Practicing

In the coming days and weeks, I’ll share several posts introducing practices I use in my coaching and workshops. These are offered as a resource for my clients and anyone else who stumbles upon them and finds them valuable. Before diving into specific practices, this post focuses on the concept of practice itself—and why it’s essential for growth and transformation.

Practice as a Verb

The word "practice" has multiple meanings. Let’s start with the verb: practicing something as a way to improve. In areas like sports, we intuitively understand the importance of repetition to build new skills. However, in areas like leadership or personal growth—such as staying calm under pressure—we often overlook the need for practice.

When I first took on a leadership role, I assumed self-awareness, combined with reading a book or taking a class, would be enough. I began to appreciate the value of practice when I started doing yoga in the early 2000s. The effects of my practice extended beyond my physical health—I noticed improvements in how I handled work and led my team. My team became calmer and less reactive, and we faced fewer crises.

Back then, linking yoga or meditation with professional life was uncommon, and discussing it at work raised eyebrows. My coach in a leadership development program was unimpressed when I mentioned yoga as a way to address feedback I had received about being reactive. She asked, “No, really, what are you doing about this? What classes will you take? What books will you read?”

Over time, I realized it wasn’t yoga itself but having a consistent practice that helped me. Yoga grounded me, taught me to slow down, and trained my nervous system to respond differently under pressure. Years later, when I reconnected with that coach, she had embraced mindfulness practices in her own work. We had both come to understand that growth comes through intentional practice.

Practice as a Noun

Practice is also a noun—something we engage in continually, even after achieving mastery. Consider brushing your teeth: it’s a lifelong practice we maintain despite mastering it early on. Some practices, like yoga, meditation, and any pursuit of art or sport are ongoing journeys where we can continually grow.

Staci Haines, a lead teacher at the Strozzi Institute, and Ng’ethe Maina, describe practice in The Transformative Power of Practice:

Practice begins to orient and shape how we show up in the world. Practice changes our minds, bodies, and moods towards the new way of being, because we are in fact momentarily living a new mental narrative, a new emotional orientation, and a new physical shape. Each time we do the practice we are spending that moment of time interrupting the old habits and living the new pattern that we seek to put into place. Literally, as we practice new movements, internal conversations (reminding yourself of what it is you are committed to) and new emotional states, we are creating new neuronal pathways in the brain and new muscle memory in the body.

Default Practices

While I’ve focused on intentional practices, we also have unconscious “default practices” that shape how we move through life. Richard Strozzi says, “We are always practicing something.” Haines describes default practices as ingrained behaviors that can either reinforce unhelpful habits or open us to new possibilities.

Meditation teacher Jeff Warren* ties these ideas together:

My working definition of practice is any activity or way of being that we engage in regularly and deliberately. We all have habits that creep up on us and get in our way: the habit of procrastination, for instance.

Practices are the habits we choose. The more we repeat them, the less we seem to choose them. Eventually, our practices choose us.

Warren, Strozzi, and Haines encourage us to observe our practices and evaluate where they align—or misalign—with our values. Many default practices are rooted in past experiences that once served us, and helped us to create a sense of safety,  but may no longer be helpful. By recognizing these patterns, we can gently shift them toward something more constructive.

What Do I Practice?

A key part of growth is identifying the practices you want to cultivate. Haines and Maina suggest asking, “What do I want to practice?” Answering this question intentionally is essential. For instance, if your goal is to stay present and listen deeply, then you design (or find) a practice to support that intention. If you’re working with emotions like anger or grief, practices that allow you to feel these emotions rather than avoid them can be helpful.

There’s a growing body of literature on habit formation that’s valuable for creating new practices. James Clear’s Atomic Habits is one of my favorites. Key takeaways from Clear’s work are to start small, choose accessible actions, and build practices you enjoy. I would add to that viewing practices as experiments you can refine and modify over time.

Staci Haines emphasizes consistency:  

You don’t want to wait for the heat of the moment to try to practice something new, you want to practice it like you would the piano or basketball, during practice time, daily…Practice is transformative because you begin to embody new ways of being. Through repetition what was a new practice becomes natural, easy, a new habit. You are in fact beginning to become somebody new.

In Closing

Intentional practice doesn’t offer shortcuts, but it can deliver lasting, even life-changing, results. Practice isn’t magic, but it can be magical. With consistent effort, small practices can help us grow into the leaders and individuals we aspire to be.

In the next few posts, I’ll share instructions for some of my favorite practices that you can try—or modify to suit your needs. Enjoy, and let me know what you discover!

Jeff Warren’s meditations can be found on the Calm App, the 10% Happier App, and his Substack. His down-to-earth guidance is my go-to when meditation feels particularly challenging.

You can find the full article by Stacie Haines and Ng’ethe Maina here.