Setting clear and tangible musical goals is crucial for making significant progress in your guitar playing. Many guitarists don’t even make the effort to set goals for themselves and end up frustrated for one or all of these reasons:
- Not knowing what to practice
- Practicing too many things at once and become overwhelmed
- Feeling bored with practice sessions that have no direction
Avoid this frustration by following these guidelines when you set YOUR guitar playing/musical goals:
Make Your Musical Goals Crystal-Clear
It is much easier to achieve anything when you know exactly what it is that you are trying to achieve. In other words, set your guitar playing goals as clearly as possible. Many guitarists set very vague goals, such as:
- “Become a better guitarist”
- “Play faster”
- “Get good at guitar” …etc.
Trying to reach goals like this is difficult because they are not fully defined. What does it really mean to “get good” or “become better?” This has a different meaning for everyone. For most guitarists, they actually mean something specific by these statements. However, they never bother to investigate deeper (and fail to go anywhere in their playing as a result). Think long and hard about what you want to achieve on guitar. Here are some tips to help you be as clear as possible:
Set goals that are tangible. Use numbers or specific accomplishments that can be tracked over a period of time. For example, “I want to be able to play my favorite guitar lick without making mistakes at 150 beats per minute.” This gives you at least two variables that can be tracked: accuracy and speed.
Set BIG Musical Goals
Don’t settle for trying to achieve easy things on guitar. The bigger the goals you set for yourself, the more motivated you become to achieve them… and the better it feels when you finally do achieve them. Focus on what you WANT rather than what merely seems possible.
Jacob Melling (guitar teacher and owner of the American Academy of Guitar Mastery) offers his advice on the matter: “Don’t allow the fear of failure to hold you back from pursuing big goals in music. Too many guitar players doubt themselves too much and settle for small goals when they have the potential for greatness. Remember, even the greatest guitar players had to start from zero. You really can achieve anything in your guitar playing as long as you don’t shoot yourself in the foot before even trying. So set BIG goals for yourself. Like, really BIG goals that no one would even think about trying. Simply pursuing goals like this gives you the potential to become a much better player than most people ever dream of.”
Work With A Guitar Teacher To Reach Your Goals
Once you’ve created clear goals for yourself and chosen to pursue great things, take guitar lessons with an experienced teacher who will help you achieve them. Experts agree, finding a teacher is the most direct, and effective way to reach musical goals.
Tom Hess, guitar teacher trainer and music career mentor says: “Having an experienced teacher to guide you towards your goals is crucial as a guitarist. Once you find a teacher like this who has already helped many others like you reach the exact same musical goals, all you need to do is follow what he/she says and you will achieve them fast.”
Apply the ideas in this article and get started achieving great things on guitar!