Even more impressive in the study, though, was what type of music the kids preferred. Both groups of kids chose to listen to music for the same amount of time overall. They liked music to the same degree. But those who had heard their parents sing lullabies to them had begun to develop an understanding of harmonic texture and refine their acoustic style. They knew what they liked, and they liked what was most similar to what they had learned with their parents. On the other hand, the kids who played games with their parents while listening to music in the background couldn’t tell the difference between the tonal and dissonant harmonies.
I have taught psychology at universitites for about fifteen years, and I knew from the research my colleagues were doing that having some understanding of music, even as a little kid, has implications for development beyond the recording studio. German scientists found that small children who created and danced around to music with other kids and adults were more helpful to other kids later on, compared to those who played games with others but without any musical accompaniment. In fact, only four out of twenty-four children in the latter group helped a friend fix a broken toy. But thirteen of twenty-four children who’d made music as a part of their playtime activities helped their buddy. The researchers explained that making music in a group requires the musicians, regardless of their age, to remain aware of others. Musicians coordinate with other people, sharing emotional experiences and patterns of movement, and creating sounds that require synchronization. Across evolution, music helped us bond in groups. When we practice making music, we are also practicing good social skills.
Deciding to fill the precious moments while Mattie slept with my own musical training—more noise, chaos, and inevitable frustration—may seem like a pretty self-defeating idea. But I reasoned that building music into my day would give my brain something to mull over rather than the over-under on when Mattie would bellow for his next meal. I could now crank the stereo, cue up Blue Öyster Cult rather than “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep,” and call it studying. And with the research I read and used as my justification, I could also claim to be teaching Mattie some valuable life lessons. This was a goal that I knew would be difficult to meet, but it was my brass ring and I wanted to grab it.
Of course, this period in my life wouldn’t be the first time I struggled to meet a goal that posed a great challenge, and I wouldn’t be the first person who did so. Every December, Marist College polls about a thousand adults, representing a broad swath of America, asking whether they are planning to set a New Year’s resolution. Each year, the numbers are the same. About half of the respondents say they are. But when asked if they held to the commitment they made the previous year, about one in three says they did not. Setting the goal isn’t enough to see it through. Personally, I know this quite well. I, too, have vowed on the first of the year to learn more about how to invest for retirement but eventually let that educational pursuit fall by the wayside. I’ve renewed gym memberships that come with bills that end up being monthly reminders of my own inactivity. I’ve tried an arsenal of strategies to help me make the right choices—giving myself pep talks on achieving fiscal health, writing myself reminders to buy a new gym-locker padlock—but they didn’t seem to bring my wallet or my waistline any closer to where I wanted either of them to be.
These same issues plagued my early attempts to improve my groove. For my first practice session, I sat on the floor next to Mattie and we knocked around on an upside-down metal bowl with a silicone bottom, using a starter-sized whisk as a drumstick. I was treating the bowl as my practice pad. Mattie was using it as a chew toy. Neither of us did much to keep a beat. I was far from mimicking Dave Grohl or Buddy Rich or even Animal from the Muppets.
When that first practice session (a generous description for what it actually was) came to an end, it was clear that my interest in this endeavor wasn’t going to sustain itself. I wasn’t good. I didn’t like listening to the sounds I made. And it would take a while before either of those things would change. Even before I really got started, I found my own interest in this project waning, just as it had every time someone tried to talk to me about balancing risk in my financial portfolio, the intricacies of insurance coverage when I rented a car, or sports in general. If I was going to stick with this drum thing, I would have to get creative about how I kept myself committed.
Like so many other people do, I tried to remind myself of my goal, and why it was important. I had friends stopping by to meet Mattie for the first time. When they asked what was going on, I desperately wanted to have something to report on other than the size of the onesies Mattie was now wearing, or his preference to sleep in a position that resembled a cactus. I reminded myself that music was food for the soul and the brain, and looked for evidence of the benefits of personal time for new mothers. I would like to say that I spent those middle-of-the-night hours when Mattie needed a milk-hit gazing lovingly at my guzzling, snuggly baby. But I didn’t. Usually I was holding him with one hand and using the other to pull up synopses of scientific reports on my phone. (It was the only thing that kept me from falling over dead asleep onto him.) I thought that the data would strengthen my resolve to keep up the practicing when it sounded just as grating as construction workers tearing up a road, and felt as uncoordinated as a baby emu learning to walk. But the process of searching out the published investigations—especially when I’d rather have been sleeping—and then evaluating the quality of the scholarship, understanding its implications, and translating them into a message I could use to remember why it was important to let both of us whale away on the kitchen products was intensive. It cost me time, energy, and mental bandwidth that I honestly couldn’t afford to spare. And every day when I needed a reminder about why we were subjecting our ears to this, it wasn’t sustainable.
Why not?
Because these strategies, the ones we use most often in pursuit of our goals, are exhausting.
The go-to tactics for maintaining motivation that occurred to me, and that most readily come to mind for others, can’t meet the demands of the job. In my case, the personal reminders and self-encouragement would likely prove as successful as grabbing a pool noodle when you’re standing on the upper deck of a sinking ship. The titanic undertaking of learning the drums would require something better.
And that’s true for challenges well beyond just the musical one I faced. When dieting, denying ourselves the cheesecake for dessert requires that we regularly defeat the pull of temptation. When balancing a budget, following through on making a monthly contribution to a health savings account does not feel as gratifying as spending that same money on a cappuccino at the corner coffee shop on the way to work each morning. Doing the unfamiliar thing, the demanding thing that will help us reach our goals, requires in-the-moment mastery. Repeating the mantra “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can…” gets old fast. And when we try to rid our minds of temptations and vices, our efforts backfire.
Female dieters in search of solutions tried out this effortful approach. Following the direction of experimenters, they worked to avoid thinking about eating chocolate. Another group was told to indulge their imaginations and savor the illusory sensations of eating chocolate in their minds. While you might think that imagining the taste and feel of that silky sweetness would whet dieters’ appetites for the delicious treat, it didn’t. Those who actively tried to stop their thoughts from wandering toward the delicacy ate eight or nine pieces later in the study, when offered the chance to sample Cadbury Shots and Galaxy Minstrels. Compare this to how much was eaten by the dieters who had thought intensely about how chocolate smelled, tasted, and melted away in their mouths. These dieters ate, on average, only five or six pieces. As with the first group of dieters, the strategies we generally use to approach the goals that matter most are the wrong ones. They aren’t making our tough jobs any easier, because they deplete our limited reserves of energy, time, and interest.