To gain maximum benefit from the guitar lessons that you’re having with your guitar teacher, it’s essential to develop the habit of practicing on a daily, or near-daily, basis. If you don’t do this, then it can often cause these three major problems…
- Slow progress. Regular practice is the main thing that separates the guitarists that make steady progress, from the guitarists that make painfully slow, or non-existent progress. Sure, everyone progresses at different rates—but with everything else being equal, you’ll always progress faster with regular practice, than with sporadic practice.
- Lack of confidence. If you’re not progressing, then it’s easy to lose belief in your ability to improve your guitar playing. Once this happens, then it becomes even more likely that you won’t practice. After all—why even try, if you don’t think it will help?
- Quitting guitar lessons. I’ve found from experience, that if a new student doesn’t develop the habit of practicing regularly, then they usually won’t be a student for long. And once a student stops taking lessons, then obviously I won’t be able to help them to improve their playing!
Introducing The Challenge
The main purpose of the 30 Day Guitar Practice Challenge is to help you to develop consistency with guitar practice. So if you already practice on a daily basis, then you probably don’t need to do it—although, you might want to do it just for fun. 🙂
Here are the steps you need to follow…
Step 1: Download And Print Out The Handout.
I’ve created a handout that you can fill out during the challenge. To download and print it, just click on the blue button below…
Download HandoutStep 2: Decide On A Daily Minimum Practice Amount.
Because the main priority of this challenge is consistency of practice, and not total amount of practice, then I recommend choosing an amount that you feel is realistic. Of course, don’t choose an amount that wouldn’t be challenging at all. For Example: Five minutes a day would be such a small amount, that there would be absolutely challenge in doing it. And let’s be honest—if someone can’t do five minutes a day, then improving their guitar playing obviously isn’t very important to them, so there would be little point in doing the challenge! 🙂
Once you’ve chosen your daily minimum practice amount, then write it on the handout that you printed out.
Step 3: Schedule Your Practice
One of the main reasons why some students don’t practice every day is that it’s simply not a priority. Sure, they might say that they “don’t have time”, but in reality they haven’t made the time to do it. (It’s not as if guitarists that practice regularly have any more time in the day!). To help you avoid this problem, for the next 30 days you’ll be scheduling your guitar practice into your calendar, like you would for any other important appointment. This might mean that you’ll need to get up early before work, or stay up late, but it’s critical that you make time for it—whatever it takes. 🙂
Step 4: Do The Daily Practice
For this step you’ll do your daily guitar practice, and write in how much you did on the handout. Although you’re free to practice as much as you want, make sure that you at least do the minimum amount that you chose for Step 2.
Step 5: Repeat Step 4 For 29 More Days
If you normally don’t practice on a daily basis, then this step could prove to be challenging. But that’s the point right? 🙂
You might be wondering what happens if you miss a day. Well, it’s pretty simple—all you need to do is go back to the first step and repeat the challenge. It’s also a good idea to think about the reason why you didn’t complete the challenge, and how (if possible) you can avoid it from negatively impacting your practice in the future.
A Few Last Words
If your guitar practice isn’t yet very consistent, I really encourage you to give this 30 Day Guitar Practice Challenge a go. It might get you outside of your comfort zone, but if it helps you to become a better guitar player, then it’s worth it. 🙂
Good luck!
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