Two Secrets of High Achievement: Music and Nature

Why is it so difficult to move from thinking to doing?

Would you rather read a book and scroll through articles on your phone instead of shutting out distractions to get down to the hard work of creating something or making something out of nothing but your imagination?

Would you rather write in your journal and make lists of all activities you could do to get in shape, feel stronger, and love the way you look in the mirror or get up, move your body, do the repetitions, and meet that 10,000 steps daily minimum for normal health?

Does it seem easier to stay where you are or retreat to the safer place of passive learning and thinking instead of challenging yourself at the edge of your abilities? When looking at what it takes to go beyond “best practices” and lean into “next practices” do you feel pressure to learn many tiny skills that add up because you need to master the basics before moving on to more advanced achievements?

According to Anne-Laure LeCunff, we don’t suffer from a knowledge deficit—we suffer from a doing deficit. In The Doing Deficit: How Deliberate Action Outperforms Passive Learning, she shows us the deeply emotional reasons why we feel pressure to keep doing the repetitions until we can do the hard thing with more confidence and grace.

Deliberate practice isn’t just about putting in the time or the work. Deliberate practice can be slow and repetitive because you need to drill the same content over and over to solidify the new connections in your brain. The hard part isn’t learning what to do; it’s doing what we already know. How can we shift from passive thinking to active doing?

According to Ness Labs, founded by Le Cunff, there are five elements to get from thinking to doing: 1. start small, 2. focus on process, 3. track progress, 4. embrace discomfort, and 5. find accountability.

Why would you read further and listen to me?

Spoiler alert: You can love this next paragraph and stop here. You can also feed your curiosity and desire for another dopamine high and read the whole article.

“Because no one has ever lived or will ever live this life I am attempting to live, with my gifts and challenges and past and people. Every life is an unprecedented experiment. This life is mine alone. So I have stopped asking people for directions to places they’ve never been. There is no map. We are all pioneers.” — Glennon Doyle, Untamed (2020), a book selected as part of Reese Witherspoon’s Book Club.

Secrets of High Achievement

Professionals and communicators are big on overthinking everything and procrastinating on the rest. Toss into this mix some gifted brains and neurodiverse traits of heightened sensitivities, extreme curiosity, mystery, complexity, and idealism, and you notice adults who make mistakes and struggle to figure out how to pivot again and again to find a burst of creative energy to get past the disappointments.

Two things always work and one thing is not the answer when we need to get that kick of endorphins into our brain that says, “Hell yes, I’m ready to go again.” One is music. The other is nature. The one thing that is not the answer is artificial intelligence.

Let’s unpack this so it works for you. Playing and listening to music works because it moves through our bodies and not just our minds. Music is everywhere all of the time and is free or low-cost to access. You can sing, play an instrument, put in your earbuds and dial up a playlist, or go to church or a concert where there are no earbuds and everyone is moving to the same song, singing the lyrics.

For as long as humans have been here, there’s music. In recent years, there has been a growing body of research that shows music is effective in addressing many conditions, from pain relief and alleviating anxiety and depression to regaining speech after stroke or traumatic brain injury. Music improves mobility for people with disorders that include Parkinson’s disease and MS.

The research data is massive and says the same thing: The 86 billion neurons in the human brain love music.

Credit Will Eames from Pixabay

Nature is the secret to achievement for many writers and creative professionals. It takes less than 10 minutes in nature to reset the brain and flush out negative thoughts. Take more than 10 minutes if you enjoy the endorphin high from seeking awe in nature.

For centuries, poets and philosophers extolled the benefits of a walk in the woods: Beethoven drew inspiration from rocks and trees; Wordsworth composed while walking over the heath; Nikola Tesla conceived the electric motor while visiting a park.

The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative, by Florence Williams (2017) delivers new research and uncovers the powers of the natural world to improve health, promote reflection and innovation, and strengthen our relationships. As our lives shift indoors, these ideas—and the answers they yield—are more urgent than ever.

Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life. When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer, then a tree has something to say to us: Be still! Be still! Look at me! Life is not easy, life is not difficult. Those are childish thoughts… Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all. — Hermann Hesse, winner of the Mobel Prize in Literature.

Credit Warner Brothers Wizard of Oz 1939

Do Not Be Fooled By the Man Behind the Curtain

It’s tempting to toss a bone to artificial intelligence when discussing high achievement.

When you stay focused on secrets of high achievement, separating productivity benefits from specific, measured results that illustrate a direct impact of AI on achievement—that’s like separating yolks from egg whites. It looks like one egg but crack it open and it’s two different elements. It can be slippery and tricky if you don’t know how to separate them.

Does AI create new revenue streams for you or are the technology companies raking in billions from you and others chasing productivity promises and illusions? Does AI enhance your mental sharpness or is it a diversion, a shiny object, and one more thing diluting your focus because you have to learn it without someone else paying you to “skill up” with the AI tool announcements, released daily?

So far, most of the research on AI beyond the productivity pitches is looking at the benefit to the company, the school system, the employer, or the enterprise, but not you, the individual, the solopreneur, the professional, the writer, or everyday genius.

Credit Wal 172619 from Pixabay

Move from thinking to doing

I love books and have a large library full of them. Fortunately, reading is part of my business so I get different points of view and momentum for writing. The secret to high achievement is to go from reading to writing and making something every day. The secret is to find your mixture of music and nature throughout the day so that you are unstoppable and minimize wasted time or wasted motions.

At the start of the day, look at it as 16 hours you get to do what you want to do because your brain is moving from calm to excited to engaged and satisfied. It’s not a chore if you want to do it. Instead of saying “I have to write today” say “I get to write today.”

Writing is an everyday joy even if I publish only once or twice a week. The writing, rewriting, editing, polishing, illustrating, and formatting take a block of three hours every day. Even if you have paid staff, a research assistant, ChatGPT, or all of that, there’s no shortcut through those three hours of interviewing, listening, writing, chatting with other editors, and revising, to make sure your work is authentic—something only you can create.

You don’t have to post it but you do need to write it. Tomorrow you can rewrite it and edit it. The next day you can send it to three people who are true friends and non-judgmental and listen to how they see it being more “the real voice of you.”

It’s your one precious life. What do you choose?

What’s all the excitement about being a thought leader? All evidence seems to point to being doing leader as the road to a meaningful life. In a culture obsessed with happiness, intentional and deliberate doing, with plenty of music and nature points the way toward a richer, more satisfying life.