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Day 101 of The 100 Day Project – Recap (Long!)
Some people have asked me to post about what I’ve learned from The 100 Day Project. Here goes:
· If you say you can or you say you can’t, you’re right! It’s been said before, but it is definitely worth highlighting. Self-talk and staying positive was very important to achieving my goal.
· You can do anything with support of friends. I’ll say again that there is NO WAY I would have accomplished this feat without the help of this fantastic TAC community. Every post, every kind word, every encouraging comment kept me going.
· Creating a routine is an important element to achieving goals. I had a specific routine for practicing, recording and posting. Without that established routine, I doubt I would have been successful.
· Remember that you’re only human. Sometimes I would get very frustrated with my inability to remember a lyric or make the right chord changes. Remembering that I’m only human certainly helped.
· It is what it is. Yep, one of my favorite sayings. Sometimes I could only do what I was able to do based on my allotted time, the energy I had left after the workday, and my skill level. Sometimes that was enough to create a nice performance; sometimes it wasn’t.
· Simple can be better. Sometimes I’d think about embellishing a chord or adding a different strumming pattern. But I was posting a new or different song each day. And my focus was on learning and memorizing, not on playing. So, I stopped trying to be fancy or add something that definitely needed more time to practice, and just record.
· Nothing is written in stone. You can make adjustments to meet your goal. I set out to memorize, record and post something daily. But some days it was nearly impossible to do this. Then I started to learn and record additional songs on my days off. The goal was still met – posting something new each day.
· Failure is only failure if you don’t get up and keep moving forward. There was only one day (Day 69) when I didn’t have something memorized – after having a reaction to my 2nd COVID vaccine. I decided to play something anyway – not memorized – it was truly awful. I was so dejected I almost quit right then. I’d failed! I hadn’t memorize the song! And I’d stunk worse than rotten fish! But so many of you were so wonderful and encouraging that I just picked up where I left off, and kept going.
· Remember there is always a silver lining. I have tons of song lyrics that I’ve written, but never music. Well, thanks to my vaccine reaction I wrote my first song – The C.O.V.I.D. Blues. (Day 71) Yeah! Silver Lining!
· Chart your course – keep a songbook. I have an Excel spreadsheet of each day and each song. And the sheets for each one is in a songbook – really just a 3-ring binder. If I would have had more time, a better thing to do would have been to keep a journal. Oh well, next time…
· In the end, it is the journey that matters. Again, this has a great deal to do with the TAC community and my interaction with so many great guitar players here. Man, you guitar geeks all ROCK! If I could personally hug each and every one of you I would. Although I rarely got a song suggestion unless I asked, I often got nicely worded hints and tips. A suggestion that this or that was good (Oh, really? – maybe I should do that again?!), and so many boosts to my confidence. I received compliments when I know my performances stank. It made me want to do better, to EARN that compliment the next time. The journey also has to do with realizing the importance of focus, of taking the necessary steps to keep moving forward, of celebrating small wins along the way (Day 20, Day 25, Day 33, Day 50, Day 75, Day 90). Sometimes you would celebrate them for me, like @Beatrice telling me on Day 19 that I was almost 20% done! So awesome!
Thank you, once again, to the best guitar geek community ever! Guitar Geeks Unite!😎🎵😎
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39 Replies
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I have one more P.S. to add here ~
Remember that your body is an extension of your instrument. About half way through I started having pain across the top of my fretting hand. Hmmmm. Had I been doing my stretching??? NO! Shame on me! Stretching. Massaging. Lots of breaks. The good news is that walking my dog 1-2 miles a day (used to be more like 2, but I did shorter walks during the 100 Days) was still part of my daily routine. I am certainly not skinny, and I am not a health nut, but I want to encourage everyone to at least take a walk each day (I guess I have to say weather permitting in those blizzard states! 🌨). Guitar playing is a sedentary venture, and human beings are meant to move. You’ll feel better, so you’ll play better!
Okay, preaching over….😎
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Thank you for taking the time to write this up @Michelle-PSL . This helps others as much as it helps you to share them. I’m glad you didn’t give up after what you thought was a failure, which turned out to simply be a learning experience for you to not be too hard on yourself. I was blown away in your Day 100 post when you said that there were days that you did upwards of 40 takes to come up with a viable video to post. I can’t imagine doing that over and over, day in and day out, and we would have certainly understood if you had errors and hiccups in your performances. My heart goes out to you for that effort. But, just think of all that extra practice you got in (I’m smiling right now, because this is meant to be facetious).
Anyway, you’re definitely an inspiration to many. Albeit, not the extent that I want to tackle this type of challenge, but to the perseverance and your positive attitude.
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Thanks @Loraine ! I’ve appreciated all your support! We all have different goals that take us on different journeys. 🚗 I hope you are enjoying yours, and I’m happy to support you wherever it takes you. 😊
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Well @loraine has sum my thoughts Michelle. Thank you for this inside view. Great job.👍👍
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I appreciate your kind words @Daniel_Morin !
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Thanks Michelle for your views on TAC, learning, positivity and walking. Memorizing a song a day is a lofty goal. I found that on my Friday afternoon hikes of 4-6 miles I would take along song lyrics and sing a verse and work on memorization — it was a way to combine the two. Lately, I have been hiking with my 35 year old daughter and 3 granddaughters and we may get a verse of This Old Man or You Are My Sunshine.
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This reply was modified 4 years, 10 months ago by J.Humble.
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Hi @J.Humble – What a beautiful trio of granddaughters you have there! They are gorgeous! I bet they so enjoy your hikes and the singalongs! I hope your trips through nature inspire you to perform (and maybe write) some wonderful songs! Thank you for sharing. 🙏🏼🙂
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This reply was modified 4 years, 10 months ago by
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Great write-up! Really good insights into an intensive project. Even when you thought your performance stunk, you played and sang something new every day. No one else I know of here can say the the same. I certainly can’t. I generally bang on one song or one skill until I have at least reached a point where I feel comfortable with it before I share it. That can take days or weeks for me sometimes. The project showed a lot of courage and determination. So I say again congrats you should be proud of each performance, even when it didn’t meet your expectations for yourself.
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Thank you so much @Alfred ! You are a great guitar friend and always lift others up. You helped me often during this challenge, even if you didn’t know it.🙏🏼
I think I learned a lot about myself over those 100 days, and I’m glad I had the experience. Where I am in my life had a lot to do with my ability to take on this project and complete it. So I understand where @Loraine is coming from in not wanting to tackle this kind of a challenge. But I believe doing something similar – maybe with a different goal? – would be great for anyone, even if it’s just for a week or 10 days…
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😊😊😊😎
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Thanks @Marty69 !
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I spent some time composing a nice reply. I was wondering why it wouldn’t post. After several tries, I navigated away (of course without copying what I had written), only to get slammed by the new TAC with the login prompt. I’m sorry for the thread drift, especially on such a cheerful page, but I needed to vent.
Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming. This is a really big win. I know it takes incredible drive to do something of this magnitude. I gave up on recording myself a long time ago because of how tough it is to get a decent take. I’m content with seeing a video from one of my Zoom open mic performances, and I’ve cut back on those, even though I play and practice as much as I ever have. From that perspective, what you’ve done here with this 100-day challenge is akin to moving a mountain. Heartiest congrats.
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Hi @dr_dave ! Thank you for taking the time to rewrite a reply. As you’ve read above, my first long post was lost. The second time I got smart and typed it in MS Word and then cut and pasted it…
I truly appreciate the high praise and I am glad to hear about your experience. I have to tell you how much you have inspired me with the VOM performances and recordings that I’ve watched. Again, thank you!!!
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Hats off to you @Michelle-PSL! Successfully completing the challenge AND reflecting on it so well has done wonders for your progress, and perhaps reminding us all of some valuable life lessons, the importance of perseverance among them.
You have been and continue to be an inspiration to many other guitarists, and for this we commend you.
The question which remains is, what’s next?
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Thanks so much @DavidScoggins ! What’s next is focus on technique and just building on the great foundation I got here at TAC. I REALLY want to learn fingerstyle Travis picking, and I’ve written lyrics for a dozen or so songs that need some music added. So there’s that… 🤔
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Thanks for the post-game comments @Michelle-PSL . I really admire your persistence. Most of the time, we have to be willing to do a thing poorly in order to eventually do it well. All those “failed” takes were great practice and moved you in the direction of your guitar goals. Perfect is the enemy good, and good enough is good enough.
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Thank you @Maydog ! I’ve appreciated all your uplifting comments along the way!
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Hi Michelle
I have enjoyed dipping into your song vault, I’m going to miss it – fancy doing another 100 days to keep us all entertained
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Thanks for following my journey @Greebosolo ! It’s been fun, but now it’s down to really learning how to play. 🙂
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Thanks for the great follow-up. You’ve succeeded with an ambitious project and allowed all us to share in it with you.
These days, personal growth seems hard to come by. Congratulations on finding yours.
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Thanks so much for the kind words @TX_DonH !
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I have looked at this header ‘100 day project’ and never clicked on it, but today I did and WOW, this is an impressive accomplishment. Congratulations to you. BTW, I’ve heard you play on the Friday open mic and your ‘awful’ day would be a #smallwin for me. I was so impressed with your playing and it provided me with a goal to strive for. Thank you.
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That’s so nice of you to say, @jimp ! Thank you so much!
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A big high-five to you Michelle! Such a great accomplishment. With all the knowledge you have gained from going through this, you can now move on to bigger things (after some rest, of course). 👍
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Thank you @NorCal_Nolan ! Only took a couple days of rest – practiced for only 30 min each day!😁 Now on to more technical things!😌
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What a truly inspiring endeavor! Thanks so much for sharing your songs with the TAC community!
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Thank you @ted_h ! I appreciate you stopping in during my journey!
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Hey @Michelle-PSL !! so it seems that i have not logged onto this forum for a couple of weeks….. so sorry!
You have achieved an enormous feat with this challenge and you should be very proud of yourself! that was absolutely amazing and inspiring for many of us. In the process you have shown great progress and improvement and strengths, the challenge was fabulous and always entertaining.
Really well done Michelle! 👏👏👏
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Thank you so much @beatrice ! I appreciate your uplifting words, and all your kindness over the course of my 100 Days. I’m not often on the forum myself lately. Without a daily recording to post, I do the Daily Challenge and then move on to other things. 😊
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😉😁
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