The Turtle Always Wins

​Sometimes you have to build habits, do things over and over at regular times.  This requires less effort but over more time. And the other times when you have to just sit down and do or finish something require more energy up front.  We need to be able to do both--and to know when we need to do them. Learning Japanese can’t be done in a few marathon study sessions of 8 hours--you’ll quickly burn out.  For ensembles, it’s easy to do bursts of work to finish that website, send those emails to prospective musicians, or raise $5,000. But doing that work is only the beginning.  While we have the excited energy from the newness of project, we can more easily work longer. But we also need to pace ourselves--and work on establishing those sustainable habits so that step-by-mundane-step we can achieve an extraordinary organization of highly talented people who are invested in the group and who actively want to change the world for the better.  Bursts work at times, but the turtle always wins.