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I’m going to get a little philosophical here…
Frustration is the result of unmet expectations. Expectations are a prediction of the future which we as humans are not good at. Most beginner guitar students get frustrated because they think they should do better than they are, and that unrealistic expectation is the driving force.
Learning the guitar is hard, and it takes repetition and time to build up the muscle memory necessary to successfully play. Think of it like going to the gym. If your goal is to bench press twice your body weight, you don’t expect to be able to go in the first day and lift that. A beginner in the gym can typically lift 1/2 their body weight and by adding 5 lbs a week can expect to take months to get their body weight. The issue with the guitar is that it is very hard to measure and observe that “5 lbs/week”. It seems like we aren’t making progress when we actually are.
Tony stresses progress over perfection. Don’t try to get the exercises in the 30-day challenge perfect, just do the best you can and move on. The perfection and improvement will come over time from the repetition.
I started my guitar journey 2.5 years ago, I started learning, got frustrated and quit after 4 weeks because I didn’t feel like I was progressing fast enough. A year later I decided to try again but I had a different mindset, the mindset was, I suck at guitar, I’m going to suck at guitar for a long time, and it is ok that I suck. That mindset helped me get through my frustration and I’m not 7 months into my guitar journey. I still occasionally get frustrated, but I also can look back and see the amazing progress I’ve made over that time which causes me to reset my expectations and continue on.
There is a great book called “The Laws of Brainjo” by Josh Turknett, he’s a neuroscientist and banjo instructor and discusses how the human brain learns new things and the best thing you can do to progress and Tony’s method of progress over perfection fits right in. Here is a link to a podcast he does about frustration
https://www.brainjo.academy/brainjo-bite-how-to-end-frustration-for-good/
brainjo.academy
Brainjo Bite: How To End Frustration For Good (Brainjo Bite) – The Brainjo Academy
Brainjo Bite: How To End Frustration For Good (Brainjo Bite) – The Brainjo Academy