The power of muscle memory
By: Ayush Bhagat
Tags: Life Lessons, Motivation, Self Improvement, Life, Millennials

The power of muscle memory

Image by Mohamed Hassan from Pixabay

A common avoidance tactic that stems from the insecurity of discovering that you are just okay at something is to convince yourself that you need more time to learn it instead of actually doing it. It’s easy to fall into the trap of trying to be great at something despite never having tried your hand at it. I was guilty of this myself. I always had an interest in the arts, but was never able to bring myself to do anything about it. I would read countless Reddit posts and blogs about screenwriting, including my favorite, Dan Harmon’s story circle, but never ended up writing anything. I’ll be honest, I still haven’t tried screenwriting, but at least now I have written a Medium article. But this story isn’t about that; it’s about my discovery of the power of muscle memory and the realization with it, that you are capable of pursuing your interests.

In early 2019, after learning a couple of chords on my friend’s Ukulele, I impulse bought an electric guitar. I was so psyched for it that before it even arrived, I would spend my nights watching and curating YouTube videos that I could use to learn it. When it finally came, I spent a total of 30 minutes over 2 days trying to play it. Tuning it with my crappy phone app, setting up the Amp — it was all too much effort just to fail at playing a few basic open chords. I even went as far as to hiding it in my closet, so I wouldn’t be reminded of it. Out of sight, out of mind.

Cut to a little more than a year later, the world was shutdown, everyone was locked in their homes, and toiler paper rolls cost $3999 with a free diamond ring¹. Then one day, when I was bored out of my mind in quarantine, I decided to open my closet and take my guitar out. But this time, I did things differently. I kept my expectations low and practiced more consistently. A week later, I was able to play the C major chord. A month later, I played my first song, Riptide. A few months later, I started singing along to the songs I could play. All I did was practice an hour a day. The trick was to let muscle memory do its thing; I just had to put in the time. There were moments when I got stuck, but by trusting the learning process, I was able to think clearly instead of giving up due to frustration. The progress kept me motivated, and distracted me from worrying about the end result. I am still a beginner at the guitar, but I am proud of how far I have come; plus, now I have some free space in my closet.

Similar to how muscle memory requires time to develop, so does any interest you want to pursue. All you have to do is be consistent and put in the time. You will reach a point where you are proud of the progress you have made. It’s not as hard as you initially think it is. It never is.

In a way, being confined in my 800 square feet apartment taught me more about going outside my comfort zone than having the freedom to explore 57 million square miles of the world. Okay, maybe a little less than that because let’s be honest, I don’t have the freedom to visit North Korea. You may think that my story is obvious, and in that case, good for you because you already understand the power of consistency. But for everyone else like me, I found this comparison between muscle memory and pursuing your interests, profound. Similar to how muscle memory works, you can pursue your interests to a degree that you are proud of just by working on it a little every day. It was like the realization you have in senior year of University that no matter how much work you have to do, somehow it always gets done. That realization is powerful because it lets you enjoy your free time instead of stressing out about work, or in this case, the worry of not being good at your interest. Twenty-twenty has been a shitty year for everyone, but if there is something I learned this year, it’s that you just have to go and pursue things you are interested in — forget about trying to create a masterpiece, focus on the progress.