The adage goes: Practice makes perfect. That’s true, if you’re practicing the right skill in the right way. More accurately, Practice makes any habit (almost) permanent. Practice can make a flawed habit just a deeply ingrained as a perfect habit.

If you meet an adult who, since early childhood has held forks and spoons in a fist (rather than with three fingers in a pencil-like grip) and ask him to hold his utensils in a standard way, it will feel awkward and difficult to adopt the new hold because years of practice has made his fist-grasp feel normal.

Manners of speech are little different. If you meet an adult who has a verbal habit of using ums and ahs to connect parts of speech, and ask her to speak without those audible pauses, it will feel to her like learning how to speak all over again. By constant practice, she has trained herself to use those sounds without ever thinking about it.

In virtually everything we do, practice makes almost permanent. For this reason, learning early to hold a fork in a particular way, or to speak without ums and ahs pays dividends for years to come. Practice can make perfect, but only if it is practicing a valuable activity with thoughtfulness and excellence.