When I wrote about Beethoven last year I focused on his determination, and his unwillingness to give in to his deafness over his desire to compose. I also talked about how he chose to be a victor instead of a victim. You can re-read that article here.

What I have discovered since writing that article is The Lightbulb Moment for this week. Many people talk to us about staying motivated. However, there are many times in life when we are not really motivated to do something, even when it needs to be done. This is particularly true for a pianist. Often there are difficult passages in a work we are not motivated to pull apart and put back together again because they require a lot of work, a lot of energy, and a lot of inconvenience. Other times we do not want to practice scales because we know we will never be playing them as part of a concert, so they appear to be a bit pointless.

Motivation is valuable when it inspires us to do something, but our greatest successes will never come from just from motivation. Consistency, on the other hand, allows us to take on whatever needs to be accomplished knowing that if we keep doing something regularly, and over and over again, we will inevitably improve.

Water washing over rocks can actually change their shape over time. Little bits of sand and gravel in the constantly flowing water wash away bits of the rock through both chemical and physical reactions. Sand moving across a desert can ultimately expose the roots on one side of a tree.

How does this happen? A little bit at a time. The water laps over the rocks consistently, day in and day out. The sand moves away from the roots of the tree a few grains at a time, day after day, night after night, until all of the roots on that side of the tree are fully exposed.

Whatever else Beethoven was, however disciplined, however determined, however motivated, he was, above all, consistent. He did what he needed to do every day in order to create in his deafness all of the masterpieces we have celebrated for more than two centuries.

As pianists we are no different. If we wait to work only when we are motivated, only when we feel like it, the opportunities for many breakthroughs may just pass us by entirely.

By contrast, if we work consistently, we can slowly but surely, like those rocks, change the shape of our talents into something smooth, refined, and elegant. We can, like those grains of sand moving one at a time on a consistent basis, show the world the roots of our talent, thereby exposing the energy, hard work—and perhaps even genius—that has turned our consistency into true greatness.