How To Find Motivation To Practice Guitar

How do your favorite guitar players sustain their motivation to practice guitar day after day?  Many musicians erroneously believe that the greatest guitar players must have been born with a huge amount of discipline that enabled them to find motivation to practice guitar for hours every day.  Although it is true that the best guitar players did possess a high amount of drive and ambition, this motivation to practice guitar did not appear inside them by accident or by chance. 

Although the answer to what causes some guitar players to be more motivated to practice guitar is quite simple, it is one of the guitar playing secrets that sets apart the great guitarists from those who will continue to struggle and not make a lot of progress towards their guitar playing goals. 

In order to be continuously motivated to practice guitar, you need to do two things:

1.  Always Keep Your Eyes (And Mind) Focused On The Long Term Guitar Playing Goals You Have Set For Yourself
When Arnold Schwarzenegger (the most famous bodybuilding champion of the 20th century) was asked what drove him to perform the incredibly intense 5 hour daily workouts in the gym, he replied: "I visualized each workout and each repetition of an exercise as a small step forward that was taking me closer to becoming the world champion bodybuilder that I wanted to be.  As a result, it was easy to look forward every day to doing the amount of work that most people would consider unbearable." 
It is easy to see how the quote above applies to finding motivation to practice guitar.  If you know exactly what your guitar playing goals are and if you focus your mind on visualizing how great it will feel to FINALLY play guitar at the level you want, it is easy to imagine your guitar practice sessions as "steps" that must be taken to arrive to your guitar playing goals (similar to what Schwarzenegger described above).  When you learn to think in this way, you too will start to look forward to practicing guitar each day and will feel that with each practice session you are becoming a better guitar player (because you are).  The above advice is the most valuable guitar playing secret to discovering long term motivation to practice guitar. 

2.  Use Effective Guitar Practice Methods
In addition to visualizing your guitar practice sessions in the way described above, you also need to be sure that your guitar practice methods are effective enough to make you a better guitar player.  If your approaches to practicing guitar are not delivering serious results, it is difficult to view each practice session as a "forward step" towards your guitar playing goals (as described above). 

The reverse is also true: when you see consistent progress in your guitar playing as a result of powerfully effective guitar practice methods, this creates a stronger level of motivation to practice guitar. 

What Should You Do Right Now?
Now that you understand the secrets of increasing your motivation to practice guitar, you need to use the power of your mind to visualize EXACTLY what it is you want to do on guitar that would make you happy for the rest of your musical life (ask yourself this question and think hard about the answer).  Whatever answer you come up with, write it down on paper and put this piece of paper in a place where you will see it every day.  Make sure to review your guitar playing goals daily - this is important!  All of your favorite guitar players achieved this crystal clear vision of what they wanted to do on the instrument in order to become inspired to practice guitar every day. 

Next (as described above), find out what musical skills you need to develop and learn how to master them in most effective ways.  This will give your practicing a sense of direction and purpose and will create a continuous stream of motivation to practice guitar every day.

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