Hey Friend,
How do you get better at guitar? How do you get better at anything? That seems to be a question batted around the Internet for almost every subject imaginable, and everyone has an opinion. You're getting mine right here...
The way to get better at guitar is to play better. The way to play better is to do it every day.
This isn't new advice. It's not even sexy (the most successful suggestions usually aren't). Heck, I even paraphrased it, which had been something Jerry Seinfeld is quoted as saying. But it is proven time and again to deliver results. For anything you want to achieve.
As the story goes, Brad Isaac was trying to learn the comedy ropes and had a chance meeting with Jerry Seinfeld at a club shortly after Jerry's TV show "Seinfeld" had started. Brad wanted to know how to have a successful career in comedy. Here's what Jerry told him...
"He said the way to be a better comic was to create better jokes and the way to create better jokes was to write every day.
He told me to get a big wall calendar that has a whole year on one page and hang it on a prominent wall. The next step was to get a big red magic marker. He said for each day that I do my task of writing, I get to put a big red X over that day.
After a few days you'll have a chain. Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day. You'll like seeing that chain, especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job is to not break the chain."
What he suggested here is a system - a very simple system. Start practicing today, and every day following, play something on your guitar. It doesn't have to be something difficult or new. Your practice session doesn't even have to be good.
You just have to pick up your guitar and do it. Every day.
You're establishing a habit of daily action, and that is the one, un-sexy key to success that is the easiest to discount.
While it might seem that missing a day here or there won't hurt your progress, there's a subconscious element working here that will undermine your success. Your brain, for all it's incredible ability, is really a very simple mechanism. Despite our constant attempts to multi-task, our brains can only do one conscious thing at a time.
It's also very lazy - it wants to do what it wants to do, and is easily distracted away from whatever task it has. So we have to use simple tricks and tools to help keep ourselves on task.
That's why this idea of using a visible calendar to keep track of your daily success is so powerful. You build on your success by keeping this consistent schedule, and your brain sees this daily consistency and accepts it as its job.
Also notice I didn't say do more playing. You don't have to feel like you need to play for eight hours a day. It's the act of keeping up a daily practice session that will move you towards the success you're after.
Highly successful and wealthy people understand this simple technique. You don't usually hear about it because it's so mundane, but that's probably why most of us haven't reached the level of success we want - we keep looking for the secret trick, but it's always been there, right in front of us. Do it every day.
Worked for Jerry Seinfeld (resulting in a $32M a year income). Worked for Michael Jordan. Worked for Michael Phelps. Steve Vai... And countless others.
Like I've said before - get started, and don't quit. Add a little tracking device like a wall calendar, and now you have a visible reminder and reward system in place. Keep doing every day. You will see success...
I give you exercises every week - enough to keep you busy every day. Take advantage of this to build your discipline up. Work it every day - even if you only have 5 minutes to put towards it. It's worth it!
Peace~
Dave | 
