Why You Must Accept Your Limitations

I'm Robert Estrin, you're watching LivingPianos.com, your online piano resource. And today I'm talking about something really important, why you must accept your limitations. Now I don't want me to bring you down, as a matter of fact, it's quite the opposite.

Anybody who's really accomplished anything great, it's because they accept their own limitations.

You look at people who are masters at any craft or art and you think everything just must come easily to them.

What you don't see is the hard work that goes into it. I can't tell you how many times I have students who think they're the only ones that piano is so hard for.

It's actually really hard for anyone. Now there are different things that are difficult for different people. Some people excel at some things, some people excel at other things. But the key to being able to accomplish anything is to accept where you're at and what it takes. And it takes way more than you think it does. And this goes for everything. You see a beautiful painting that's absolutely photorealistic and you're in awe of the quality of the work and you can't imagine how it's done and you think they're just geniuses. No, if you lived with that person, you watched them work, you'd realize the countless hours, the meticulousness they spend working and crafting that painting to look like that. It doesn't just happen. They accepted what it takes in order to create that masterpiece.

The same is true in your piano practice. It's very easy to dismiss things and think, oh, I should be able to get this. Why can't I get this? You know what? It's because you're human.

And if you look behind, I have a video, it hasn't come out yet actually.

The editing has been mind -bogglingly difficult because I want to put the scoring in the whole thing. I sat down one day and practiced for a while and a piece that I studied years and years ago very briefly and I just showed how I practiced.

When it comes out, it's a Mozart fantasy and there's a fast section in there and I talked about how I … and it goes on. And I practiced really just that part of it and it's about a 40 -minute practice session but I knew it was like too long for anybody to watch or maybe you would enjoy it but I have parts that go in fast motion so you realize how long I take to learn something to really get it under my fingers and into my head. And you realize, yeah, it's not a snap. Just because I can play all this music from memory doesn't mean that it just comes to me like boom, the score is absorbed. It's a meticulous process. I have a video I did years ago.

I flipped open randomly the Chopin and the Mazurkas and found a Mazurka I'd never even heard before and I started memorizing it. And you should watch it. I'll put that in the description and then Mozart, be watching for it. My editor, I thank him so much for the hard work he's doing putting all the scoring in there. And you'll see what it takes. So don't beat yourself up.

Accept that this is what it takes. Then you decide, is it worth the effort or not? But to think that it should come more easily than it does, you're not going to get anywhere with that. You'll just get frustrated and you'll think less of yourself. Just accept your limitations and from there you can accomplish almost anything.

That's the message for today. I hope it's inspiring for you, not discouraging. Let me know in the comments how many of you have experienced this and come to this realization of what it takes and whether it's worth it to you. And share it with everybody here at LivingPianos.com. I'm sure everybody would be really, really happy to hear from you. And I'm so glad that you're here joining me. Again, I'm Robert Estrin. This is LivingPianos.com, your online piano resource.

Find the original source of this video at this link: https://livingpianos.com/why-you-must-accept-your-limitations/

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