Negative Expectations

Are you sabotaging your chances for success?

"I'm going to give it another month, and if things don't get better I'm selling the guitar." This is another classic example of not making the time, but making plenty of excuses. What is going to change in the next month when that's the attitude you're carrying around with you?


How to make it work.

Don't try to convince yourself that you have no time. If you want to something badly enough you make time for it. Yes work, family life, political campaigns, vacations and everything else you mention does hinder your ability to make time. The problem is, you need to have an iron clad schedule that nothing can change. Start off with a few minutes a day, get into the habit of making it work, and pretty soon you'll find that you feel awful when you miss a day of practice. I always use exercise as an analogy, it's great when you commit yourself, but blow it off for a few sessions and pretty soon you're your old couch potato self.

Choose your environment.

A comfortable, padded chair with no arms, a sturdy music stand, a metronome and a kitchen timer are all you need to get started. Turn off the cell phone, close the door and issue a do not disturb mandate to the rest of the occupants in your home. Convince yourself that this is your private time and that phone calls, emails and text messages can certainly wait for you to finish practicing. Set the timer for whatever amount of practice you feel you can get in and don't let anything stop you.


Have a reason for practicing.

Practicing an instrument is not "running through each piece a few times." Pick a song, a technique, a trouble spot, or something else that needs work and get busy on that. Record you practice session and listen to it at the end so you can hear some progress. If you don't have a teacher, get one! It sounds self serving, but there's a lot more motivation if you're accountable to someone.

So don't give up easily, set aside a specific time to practice, make sure you're in a quiet place that makes it easy to practice, and work on something. Again, get yourself a teacher so you have to show that you've worked on playing on a weekly basis. The more you practice, the easier it becomes, the easier it becomes the more you'll want to practice.