Practicing An Instrument
Recently somebody expressed their frustration to me about the difficulty they were having progressing on their instrument. They were discouraged and felt unmotivated. This was my response. "There's nothing wrong with making mistakes. It's how we learn and ultimately get better. It's okay to suck. You will suck. It can take a long time to get good and be able to drop into a flow state. You will get frustrated. Just keep going. Give yourself the space to be bad. Some days are golden, others are like swimming upstream thru mud. Some days start great and then fall apart. Some days start hard and then get better. Just show up everyday and do the work. Give yourself permission to freak out, if something is frustrating, change gears, take a walk, play along to a record or just beat the shit out of your instrument and get mad. Throw your stick across the room and scream. Walk away if you need to, but come back. The more you play, in every way, the more the ins