How Setting Musical Goals 
​Helps You Become a Better Guitar Player

Think of anything you’ve ever done in your life that you became good at. It could be baking cookies, playing soccer, or stand-up comedy. Whatever it is, you probably didn’t become good by chance. You had to constantly improve upon what you did before, until you perfected your craft. Guitar playing is no different. By setting musical goals for yourself, you are preparing yourself for guitar greatness! Here’s how:
 

• Setting goals helps you think ahead. As guitar players, we’ve all had this problem: we sit down to play at home and spend 15 minutes just thinking about a song to learn or what we want to work on. This is a huge waste of time. When you set goals, it allows you to think ahead and you spend much more time playing and less time thinking about what to play.

 

• Setting goals keeps you busy. When we don’t have a goal to work towards, our guitar playing at home usually consists of playing a song until it’s “good enough” and then moving on to the next thing. But if you have a specific goal like “master this chord change” or “perfect this rhythm,” then you have a plan for the next thirty minutes to however long it takes you to reach that goal. There’s no issue with haphazardly speeding through material.

 

• Setting goals motivates you. When you don’t have a clear goal in mind for your guitar playing, you put yourself in danger of getting bored. You bounce around from song to song, never truly getting inspired or accomplishing anything. You may take a few breaks to check Facebook or Twitter, or even take a short nap between songs. This is ineffective practicing. When you set goals, you have something to motivate you and a clear start and finish. After you reach your goal, you have something you are proud of.

 

• Setting goals helps you track your progress. Your guitar teacher will be able to see how you’ve improved since your last lesson, but sometimes it is hard for us to see how we ourselves have progressed from week to week. You may feel like you are stagnant, just playing the same songs and working on the same things. However, when you set goals, you know when you have reached them and therefore know when you have advanced in your skills. This is a huge confidence-builder. If you can track your progress in a journal, it is even easier to see your improvement from week to week. 

 

• Setting goals helps you achieve your highest potential. We all want to get to that point in our guitar playing where we can comfortably jam out in front of others or flawlessly play a song. Setting musical goals helps you get to that point. Once you reach basic goals, you can move onto more complex and advanced goals until you have reached the peak of your playing at that time. Then you set more goals. You are never done improving and getting better.

 
 
Now you can see why it is essential to set musical goals to become the best guitar player you can be. Stop wasting your time scrolling through Ultimate Guitar for material to play and start working on goals that matter. You will make progress that you will feel proud of and you will be surprised how much you can do week by week!
 
Northville Guitar Lessons, a guitar school providing guitar lessons in Livonia, Plymouth, Novi, Canton and Northville Michigan.