Do you ever feel like David does in this email he recently sent me?
“I have been playing piano for a couple of years and just keep getting frustrated. What can I do to keep motivated to practice even though it seems like I am not getting anywhere.
P.S. I have the same feeling with my golf game so maybe it is just me! Ha!”
Research tells us that frustration is one of the most common reasons given by people who quit something.
No real surprise there right? I remember deciding to pursue riding a horse as a kid – until he bucked me off and I hit my head so hard on the ground I threw up! Which led to frustration, which led to me quitting that pursuit!
So the good news is no, it is not just you! The bad news is that it is a very real problem and left unchecked can make you not only want to give up on what you are frustrated with, but can also lead to you hesitating moving forward with other things for fear of getting to that same frustrated place. (You can only smack your head on the ground so many times before you get a little leary!)
It is no wonder we get frustrated with skills we are trying to improve. It is hard to stick with anything as is witnessed by the fact that 50% of us make New Year’s resolutions, but only about 8% achieve them! Those are not good numbers if we are trying to “stick with” something!
How can we beat those odds and succeed at getting better?
If you are frustrated with how you are progressing with your practice (or not progressing as the case may be), there are a couple of things to consider.
First is whether or not you are practicing in the most effective way. In other words do you have a practice “system” with a clear list of objectives, a way to schedule your time, track your results and get feedback on your path? If not, it could be that you are just putting in time on the wrong things, just “playing” instead of “practicing”. So consider how you are actually spending your time and try to clarify these things.
Second is something that often comes up, which is we all expect too much too soon. We get frustrated because we want the end result right now. However if we can look at it strategically, we are practicing because we need to improve, so knowing that practicing the right things in the right way and putting in the time will eventually lead to where we want to go will help us deal with the “lull”.
What exactly is the “lull”?
It is that point where the excitement of the newness of working on something has worn off but you are not quite to the point where you are good enough to make it fun and exciting. That is the lull and you have to fight it, breakthrough it and not get bogged down. Keep reminding yourself that practicing the right things will make you better in the long run even if you don’t see it now.
As the Shaolin monk said; “Patience grasshopper”.
When a student enters his first year of med school you don’t hear him say “I am so frustrated, I want to do brain surgery now”. He knows that it will take x amount of years before he can do that, so he just focuses on the work and tasks that are on the path before him – which eventually leads to where he wants to be. However, sometimes people practicing other disciplines have trouble seeing the progression of steps if they don’t have an organized system of practice to help keep them on track. Remember to remind yourself that you are on a journey, with ups and downs along the way.
Frustrations are a natural part of any worthwhile endeavor. The key is how you deal with them. With a little thinking you will be able to conclude that the frustration you are experiencing is not a final roadblock, but rather just an obstacle that you can work your way around.
Steps to deal with frustrations:
- Don’t ignore your feelings of frustration. Instead, when you feel this way, stop and acknowledge it. This can not only help you find a way to get through it, but it also gives you the power that comes from realizing that it is only a temporary state.
- Look at the specific areas or things that can be directly causing your frustration. Sometimes it can be as simple as a new way to attack a certain area of your skill that can fix everything. Dig in and find the solution!
- Get excited! Why? Because if you are frustrated you are usually just about to have a breakthrough! Frustrations usually come as you are reaching a tough point that once you get through it will lead you to a better place.
When you get frustrated, that is a good time to step back and regroup. Look at your practice system and see if it needs tweaking. Make any adjustments and then dig in. Tell yourself this same thing that I have told students for years.
“I have never seen anyone who practiced the right things, in the right way, and put in a reasonable amount of time – NOT get better”. Click here to Tweet this
It’s sort of a natural law, like the law of the harvest and reaping what you sow. It works every time – you just have to remind yourself of it occasionally.
It may seem counter productive, but, it helps me to back away for a few days when the frustration sets in. I find when I return, my mind is less cluttered and the “pressure” to perform better goes away. I’ll usually start with a review of past practices, but make sure to include something new as well to have a new goal. Patience, it works every time it’s tried.
That is a great point Jeff! That is also why I usually do my best stuff when I first start practice instead of at the end of practice when I have been banging my head against a wall trying to do something!
From the quote that you tell students, what is considered a reasonable amount of time? I’ve been trying to play guitar for four years now, and have made zero progress in that time. Has that 4 years not been a reasonable amount time to achieve some level of proficiency? At 15 minutes of daily practice?
I would say that 4 years is definitely plenty of time to develop some guitar skills. As for the 15 minutes a day… it totally depends on what you are doing in that 15 minutes. 15 minutes of focused practice on the thing you need to work on can for sure move you forward. However, if you are not seeing the improvement you want, you might try making it an hour every few days – it might be that you are not getting “in” the right mindset in 15 mins so need to have a little more time. But honestly it really does come back to exactly what you are doing with the time you have to practice.
The practice is focused, which is why the session is 15 minutes. This makes me think that it’s just not possible for me to learn how to play the guitar.
Is it even possible for someone with no talent to learn how to play the guitar? My complete lack of progress in the time I’ve been trying suggests to me that you need some inborn ability to be successful with this instrument, and I just don’t have that ability.