Rehearsals of Success

For when you catch yourself practicing your mistakes

What a strange, sad week. While fires and extreme weather conditions ravage, it feels uncomfy to write blog posts and create reels. Yet, as I wrote a couple months ago, creating is the ultimate act of hope.

And, so, we continue.

Have you heard the phrase “rehearsals of success” before?

It’s a concept used often by elite athletes and musicians. It’s used to overcome performance anxiety or to fix an error.

It’s also used often by dog trainer Susan Garrett on her fabulous podcast, Shaped by Dog.

I’ve started to think about “rehearsals of success” in lots of contexts, but let’s start with my understanding of the concept.

No matter your endeavor, you want to rehearse doing it successfully. It seems obvious, I know, but think of it like this:

A basketball player stinks at free throws. Do they stand on the line and miss over and over and over again, sinking a few here and there? No. That would be rehearsing a mistake. Instead, the player watches footage of her stance and moves her feet. She adjusts how her fingers splay across the ball. She tweaks the spot she aims for. She visualizes over and over sinking the shot. Instead of practicing the same mistake again and again, she finds a new way that actually works and practices that over and over.

I recently saw an example of a pianist who erred at the same spot of her recital piece in every rehearsal. By going at it the same way—start at the beginning of the piece and play until she made a mistake, then start over—she was rehearsing failure. So, someone suggested she play only the first few notes of the spot she messed up several times, then expand it to include the few notes before and after, then expand it to include more, working and expanding until she reached the beginning of the piece. It took a ton of time, but it worked. Instead of starting from the beginning and rehearsing her mistake over and over, she tried several new approaches, found what worked, and rehearsed that success.

And, so, with my dogs (yes, that’s dogs plural… see this week’s post below, though I clearly spoiled it with the pic at the top of this email!), I realized we have several kind of mistakes we rehearse—and I’m determined to change them so we are rehearsing success.

What kind of mistakes?

Well, training errors, of course. Those are almost always entirely human error. Filming myself training and watching the video back helps a ton. Scaffolding earlier steps in the behavior helps, too.

But what I’m thinking about this week are those mistakes in my expectations.

I think we all do this to some degree, whether it’s with pets, coworkers, partners, etc.

I expect a certain behavior and then get frustrated when it doesn’t happen. Then, that frustration leads to annoyance or even anger because, COME ON, you guys! You KNOW not to chase the cats!!

But… do they? Do they know not to chase the cats in the kitchen when it’s almost dinner time and the sharks are circling and one of the cats leaps from the counter to the floor right in front of their faces?

Well, no.

Of course they don’t.

They know not to chase the cats when things are calm. When the cats are walking—not dashing, leaping, jumping, or hurtling—walking through the room.

They know not to chase the cats when it’s just one dog and one cat, not another dog who is already tense and the second cat swats, and the first cat runs, and off they go.

And then I yell, “STOP THAT!” Even though both dogs are deaf and I know they can’t hear me.

So, we rehearse this over and over until I, the human end of the equation, finally wise up and start to make some tweaks.

That’s just one example, but it’s the most salient one in our world right now… and we are working diligently to create and test new patterns—and to stop yelling at the deaf dogs—so we can find a success to rehearse!

This also shows in work and family life, too, not just performance or training.

(One tiny example from my work life: I’m muting social media notifications on my phone because, holy moly, those things are distracting. I can stay focused and concentrate longer if I don’t keep practicing getting distracted by social media. Wish me luck. I love Instagram.)

Where are you rehearsing your mistakes and how can you shift to rehearse your successes? Leave me a note or comment and let me know how I can support your efforts to rehearse success!

Meet Stola! She’s a seven-month-old deaf pitty who is an utter delight. From her intro post:

We've been calling her a ‘pocket hippo’ because she's so small and yet manages to move through the house like a full-sized hippo.

That’s it for me for the week. I’m deep in puppy-chasing right now, which is honestly even more distracting than scrolling reels. She’s cute, but she’s trouble!

Check out the post above for some more details and my one cry for help. Otherwise, I hope you’re staying safe and warm.

Take good care,

P.S. Don’t forget that, as a subscriber, you have access to our freebie file stuffed full of useful PDFs and spreadsheets, as well as your free copy of the book POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT DOG TRAINING FOR DOGS OF ALL ABILITIES.

P.P.S. Even though I’m trying to cut back on my Insta-time, I still love it. If we’re not connected there, let’s get in touch!