How to Build the Guitar Habit

I've had a lot of hobbies and interests over the years. The two that I decided to work on are working out and the guitar. Training is more important to me right now, so I put that at the mornings. But what about guitar? I'll just put that in the evenings. Simple right?

I kick myself looking back because back when I had all the free time in the world (aka no kids yet), my music releases were all over the place. Would I work on it today? Would I work on it in the evenings? What about mornings? Sure. It was whatever and whenever. My release scheduled showed this, releasing songs maybe every 2 months, but I digress.

So we had our first kid, and at night it was hard to get into the guitar. I was no longer single or in college or jobless, so willpower drains as the day goes on. I also still had video games in my life (really video game, singular, which was DotA 2) so when the night hit and it became a choice between working on music and gaming, what do you think my brain would pick?

So, I decided that since working out was more important and I still had a lingering hobby to fit in my schedule, I'd just put guitar work at the evenings. "Just schedule it!" So it was now on my "calendar," but I had a hard time sticking with it. I was just too tired at night and just let it pass.

Now if you're reading this and you have that guitar in the closet or even out in the open and you're feeling the guilt every time you walk by, we're going to transform that so that it's so ingrained into your lifestyle that you feel off when you don't practice or play for the day. How?

Enter: Atomic Habits (for guitarists…plus my own take on it).

What Worked?

Reward: Out of all my experiments, what worked well was giving myself a big reward. For me, I would allow myself to play DotA 2 after working on a music project. Since I liked playing so much, my brain was eager to get the music work done. Why does this work? When you get any reward, which releases dopamine, your brain is going to want that same high again. To do that, it will learn the steps you took to get that reward for the next time. (Not going to go too deep in the science, but just stick with me).

Start Small: When I took gaming out and didn't have the big reward, I started using the 2 minute rule (more on that later). This meant that all I had to do was work on a song for 2 minutes. To break it down even further, I just had spend 2 minutes setting up. If you use this, your brain will say "well I just spent all this time setting up, might as well keep going and practice." Not only is it a nice trick to get you into the flow state, but it's also so much less daunting than thinking that you have to practice for an hour today.

Make it easy: As a side note, I eventually landed on classical guitar because

1. There were a bunch of songs that I wanted to do using it, not just heavy electronic music.

2. I was inspired by others on YouTube and

3. It makes the habit soooooooo much easier. I came from the electric guitar life. There's the lead, the harmony, the rhythm, and the bass that had to be memorized. The drums had to be programmed. The music had to be mixed. The videos had to be shot and edited. All of that and I wasn't even tabbing the music out. Classical guitar? Just pick it up.

This can be applied no matter how many moving parts you have for your music, but right now I'm talking to guitarists.

The Process

Huge side step: Use the mornings. A nice way to skip everything I'm about to talk about is to just wake up on an empty stomach or some coffee or after a nice small breakfast and get to work practicing. That way you don't have the entire day to talk yourself out of it. I've talked about this before, but after a nice amount of sleep, your brain and body are ready.

Into the process.

• Step 1: Schedule it.

  • In Atomic Habits, James Clear talks about having a cue in mind and writing it down. Meaning "after I do x, I will do y." If you schedule it, it's going to be after something anyway. This is part of the reason mornings work so well because the "schedule" is just at the top of the day. It would work the same if you had a 5pm lesson every day or said "I will practice after dinner". Your brain will know when it's coming.

• Step 2: Make it obvious.

  • Yes it's obvious that you want to play. What this means is that you have to put your thing out in the open where you can observe it. My guitar is right next to my desk. It doesn't take much to have a simple stand, but what if it was in the closet? What if it was in the closet in a case? Think I'm going to want to dig for it at night? Not a chance. This is why classical has been so awesome. As a bonus tip, make it as close to where you want to play as possible. Having to get up and walk across the room and grab it is just one more tiny bit of friction that we don't want.

• Step 3: Make it easy. Start Small.

  • If you've been slacking, your step here is to just pick it up and jam out to whatever you want to do. Seriously. However, if you have a song in mind, then you're going to move from just "playing" to "practicing" for that song. Eventually you should move from jamming to practicing anyway, but if you're having a rough day, just give yourself some grace and play anything, which is the entire reason you started in the first place.

  • As I hinted before, use the 2 minute rule and play for…2 minutes. Does that seem too daunting? Then do 30 seconds. Too easy? Do 5 or 10. Don't pick this timeframe with your ego, especially if you have more free time. If you say "well I could play for 4 hours so I'll play for 2 hours!" then when you practice for 1 hour and 55 minutes you're going to beat yourself up.

  • Give yourself a range of time. Yes, the small times seem silly, but again, it takes more time to get set up than it does to do the thing. Grab guitar, sit down, get out the music if you need it, get your foot stand. All of that takes time. You want your timer to be when you're actually practicing, but if you're not even showing up, then your "2 minutes" is going to be spent setting up to play. Once you get that down, maybe your max time can be 20-30 minutes for the day. This way you're not tied down too much to a set time. Yes, 4 hours per day will make you awesome, but if you're getting sloppy or sleepy, then cut it.

  • I want to make an analogy here to someone who wants to get in shape. Maybe they want to get in the gym. Would you tell someone, starting from scratch, to go to the gym for 2 hours per day 4-6 days per week? This person is probably so far in the hole that they need to practice laying their clothes out for the next morning. Maybe they have to buy the clothes in the first place. Then they have to figure out which gym they want to go to. Then they have to figure out a routine. What's an easier alternative? It would be getting someone in the habit of putting on their clothes and going for a 10 minute walk. Unless they're showing up and doing that, they have no reason to go for something harder.

• Step 4: Track

  • Mental win to track. A nice little mental boost is having somewhere that you can see yourself showing up. Get a calendar or even make one with a little piece of paper and give yourself a check, x or whatever once you've practice for the day. Even if it was 2 minutes.

  • No streak. There's a lot of talk about hitting 66 or 90 day streaks to build a habit, but if someone has been playing for 89 days straight and misses a day, did they really miss anything? No.

  • Mark it off 90%. Even though I said that, there's no accountability to yourself if you're not seeing it. So the solution is to get a calendar and month to month, you want to aim for showing up for at least 90% of the time. This means that you're allowed to miss 3 days. The good part about this is that there's no need to reset and you get some wiggle room if you're really not feeling it.

• Step 5: Wholesome Reward

  • Remember I said that your brain will remember the steps to a rewards once it's gotten it? The more intense the reward, the more it will remember it. Make it something "primal." That means something that your animal side would want, something like play (games or show) or food (something yummy). BUT be responsible. Don't practice for 2 minutes then play video games until 3am. That will work, but you'll be a zombie and not even be able to function the next day.

  • "Wholesome" means go eat a healthy treat or watch one episode of a show or play one match of something. I can't tell you what to pick.

  • As a harder level, there's something to be said for having no reward and having the task itself be the reward. That seems cheesy, but if there's no alternative to your guitar work, then the work itself will feel good. I'm not going to throw a bunch of science at you, but try each one for a week and see how you feel.

Go Try It

That's it. If you've been stuck with guitar or anything else, this will give you a path to follow so that you can build consistency.

Consistency is at the baseline of any achievement.

Thanks for reading! Be sure to check out my music here.