So habits are different from practice (I meant it in the sense of “application”, not so much in the sense of practicing the piano).

Habits refer to repetition, which implies you already know what to do so you’re just trying to get better at it. This works in closed domains where there is already a body of knowledge or pedagogy.

What I meant by practice is more about “applying” something — which means lots of experimentation to figure out what works. (In other words being a practitioner of ideas, rather than just a knower of them)

A lot of ideas that sound nice often fail when the rubber meets the road, which is why you have to subject them to the crucible of the real world through practice.