Independence Day has come and gone last month, but it is such a landmark holiday, we’re going to keep in the spirit of things with this week’s coaching tip, the last in our series of the Spirit of Independence. Thomas Jefferson said “Dispositions of the mind, like limbs of the body, acquire strength by exercise.” In other words, Thomas Jefferson is saying that we need to practice, practice, practice, if we want a strong discipline or habit.
This is not a new concept for Driver Ed in a Box®. Our course puts a great amount of emphasis on the importance of practice, because practice leads to mastery. If you know the correct procedure for a lane change, that’s great. You need to practice it, though, and exercise your neural pathways so that procedure is cemented in your brain. The more you practice, the stronger your neural connections, and the firmer those habits are rooted. That’s how you become a collision-free driver.
And just like an athlete who stops exercising will lose some strength, if you go too long without reviewing the techniques and habits of collision-free driving, your habits will begin to weaken and slip. Luckily, though, just like the athlete’s strength, your habits will get strong again fairly fast if you have a good base of mastery for the techniques of collision-free driving.
Watch this video to see me, Patrick Barrett, the Driver Education Guru, talk more about the importance of mental exercise.