Over the years, I have had periods of time where I didn't play guitar at all. Sometimes, I just wasn't in the mood to play or perhaps I was too busy with other tasks and life in general. Often, I doubted my abilities and felt that my progress was coming along too slowly. However, in the past year, I'm embraced the power of habits and the benefits of playing guitar just 5-10 minutes a day.
In 2014, I heard about the book, The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. It's a fascinating look at how habits can help to improve our lives and why they are so effective. I also read the books The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson and The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy, and loved both of them. My essential takeaway is that if you do a small task repeatedly, you will continue to improve and see massive results over time. These tasks are easy to do, but also easy *not* to do.
Bringing this back to guitar, I have found that by playing just a little everyday, my skills and overall satisfaction with understanding music have increased so much over the past year. Sometimes it's not always possible, but my goal is to play just one song each morning and build up the momentum over time. If something is difficult to learn, break it down into smaller pieces and work on each section just a little at a time. After a while, you'll be able to play the complete song through this process.
The power of habits can benefit us in so many areas of our lives. A very interesting example comes from Jerry Seinfeld. Check out his productivity secret as told by Brad Isaac (I suggest reading it now!). Form a strong daily habit to play guitar daily and, overtime, I have no doubt you'll see huge improvements.
Have you made it a habit to play guitar daily? How long have you been doing this for and what kind of results have you seen? Please share your feedback with us!
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