by Tom Hess

When playing guitar becomes frustrating, it is very hard to make progress to become a better player. Don’t give up in these moments! Many guitar players get frustrated due to a lack of results, not knowing what to practice, and many other things. However, with just a few changes, you can start making much more progress in your playing in less time.

Doing the following things makes playing guitar less of a struggle and much more fun:

Start using a practice schedule and practice with better focus -

When you don’t have a guitar practice schedule, it’s difficult to make much progress. A lot of people treat guitar practice more like guitar playing and end up wasting tons of time jamming around rather than actually working to get better. Others simply play through arpeggios, scales or licks over and over without any rhyme or reason to what they are doing. This accomplishes very little and leaves them frustrated after they’ve spent hours practicing only to get no results.

To make your guitar practice effective (and more fun), first figure out the biggest musical goals you have. Be very specific and try to make your musical goals as tangible as possible. For instance, being able to play a song without mistakes at a certain tempo 3 times in a row. Compare this to a vague goal such as trying to “get better”. The more specific you can be, the better of a chance you give yourself to actually achieve what you are setting out to do.

Once you know your goals, it’s time to figure out what to practice to reach them. Working with an experienced guitar teacher helps greatly. Make sure to find a teacher if you aren’t 100% clear on what you need to practice to reach your goals.

When you have your goals in place and know what to practice to reach them, you must practice with intense focus. Do not let your mind wander during practicing sessions. Pay attention to the mistakes you make and think about why you made them and how you can eliminate them (again, a teacher really helps here). Many guitarists practice for hours every day, but don’t let yourself get caught up in trying to practice as much as possible. Quality is better than quantity here. Even if you only practice 20 minutes a day, you get great results if that practice is high quality.

Don’t let self-doubt ruin your guitar playing -

So many guitarists fail to achieve great things because they tell themselves they can’t before they even try. Don’t make this same mistake. Your mindset is crucial for achieving anything on guitar. Make sure to constantly feed yourself positive, empowering thoughts. These will fuel your motivation to get better whenever you are faced with challenges. Additionally, you will have much more fun playing guitar when you don’t feel insecure about your playing and just focus on getting better.

With excellent guitar practice effectiveness and the right mindset, you put yourself far above and beyond most guitar players out there. The best tool you can get to help you develop these things is an excellent guitar teacher. If you don’t have one already, find one by looking for someone who teaches in your musical style, has already helped many students achieve your musical goals and has guitar teacher training. With a teacher like this, you will get better faster than ever and have a blast doing it!