A few weeks ago I was at a public park. Sitting in my car in a fairly vacant parking lot, I noticed a car drive in front of me. It was coasting slowly, as if looking for a spot to park. It was curious, especially since there were plenty of parking options. Not 3 minutes later the same car drove by again. And then again.
Turns out the driver was practicing for their driver’s license test. They had set up a course (including parallel parking cones) to go through, and I was on the inside of the loop.
I was there for about 45minutes. The other car never stopped circling the loop. Signal when turning, park then reverse, parallel park then come back out. Review, then repeat.
This is good practice. Iteration. The continual repetition of a particular series of events, while each time making small (or large) adjustments to more closely achieve the desired results.
Sometimes we might need a number of repetitions just to learn the basics of what we are trying to do. With each repetition we are remembering more, executing more smoothly, and broadening our capacity to pay attention to the bigger picture and the smallest detail. While this feels like repetition, this is actually iteration. And iteration is good practice.