[Fundamentals] Training vs. Practice

Digging into the difference between training and practice: which one should you be doing and how should each be approached to realize your goals?

Should I be training or practicing? Aren’t they the same thing? It’s easy to get the two confused, but there are major differences between them not only in terms of what they entail in practice, but how you should approach each one mentally. While training involves learning a new skill, practicing involves performing that skill over and over in order to master it and eventually making it habitual. Seems easy enough!

But training also requires a different mindset. It involves the process of learning something new — taking your current skillset and advancing it to reach your desired goals. Patience, understanding, asking questions, and building the correct objectives all take time, and are a prerequisite to effective practice. After all, you can’t practice what you don’t know! Practice subsequently involves putting in your reps and mastering what you learned in training. It also requires patience, in addition to discipline, consistency, and an appropriate feedback loop.

Separating these two concepts, and giving yourself permission to approach them differently, makes improving infinitely easier. For context, let’s tune in to a video from Northern Red’s Zack Harrison where he talks about each one in another world where, like motorsports, consequences matter.