When you have a dream of playing the guitar…
It’s important to start with the end in mind…
Decide what it is you want to do on the guitar…
Then we work back and fill in the steps to get there.
This is exactly what article is about…
But how do we fill in those gaps?
How do we place the steps needed?
Keep reading and I’ll explain all.
Using your imagination
First of all… I want to imagine you’re standing at a wide river.
You’re on one side of the river… and you want to get over to the other side.
You know that you need to build a bridge (this is the end goal in mind)...
But to build the bridge… you need to plan it first.
We can’t just start randomly putting things together.
But this is exactly how many people treat their guitar playing.
They’ll have these dreams… then they’ll start with whatever comes to mind first.
What happens to these people?
Well… sooner or later they get frustrated.
Things aren’t working out quite as it seems.
The pieces aren’t connecting together… and the bridge isn’t being built.
All of a sudden, they find themselves sick of the frustration…
So, they leave the bridge partly built (sometimes quitting on it all together.)
To build the bridge we have to figure out how to bridge the gap.
But how exactly do you bridge the gap?
How do you get from where you are right now… to where you want to be?
Here’s how I do it for me and my students.
I start by opening a spreadsheet…
I know… fun stuff right? Seriously though… it helps me to map everything out.
I then try and ask myself some questions…
“Who are my idols?”
“What do I have to learn?”
“What am I missing?”
Once I’ve answered these questions (and others)...
I’ll start with that dream in mind… and go one step back…
“To do XXX… what would I need to know?”
Then I keep going back until I arrive at where I am now.
But there’s a problem with this.
Even though I’ve done this many times…
I still need to get things checked over by someone else.
Just like everyone… I don’t know what I don’t know.
Getting past your blind spots for learning guitar
I don’t know what my blind spots are.
I don’t know what all the missing pieces are.
I need a teacher who’s above my level of understanding to check everything…
And then to put things in the right order… or fill in the gaps.
Whenever I get a new student… this is one of the very first things I do for them.
Does the plan have to be perfect? No.
Can the plan change or be altered? Of course.
It’s okay to change course a little…
But if we don’t start with a plan…
It’s like we’re trying to build the bridge without any idea of how to start.
Trying to map out your own plan for learning and playing guitar
If you’d like to give this a go…
You can do this simply with a pen and paper.
Write down your dream…
Then see if you can backtrack one step at a time…
Writing down what you think you need to know.
Darryl “the guitar-itect” Powis
P.S. This can be an extremely challenging process to go through…
Especially if it’s your first time.
So I’d like to reach out and ask you this…
If you would like my help with this…
Contact us to find out how we can help.