After Three Years I Can’t Play a Thing. Here’s Why My Guitar Lessons Were Successful.

After three years of guitar lessons, I still can’t play a thing. And I consider this a successful learning experience.

I wanted a hobby that would stimulate different areas of my brain than what was already overstimulated by my day job. I chose music, and it was either guitar or piano.

Since guitar was easier to strap to my back and take on holiday, it seemed like the more practical option.

I Can’t Play a Thing, but I’m a Success

One of my outcomes for the lessons was to learn how to deal with struggling.

I had this super well-developed ability to lose interest and give up when I didn’t succeed quickly enough (i.e. instantly), whatever the field of interest. I soon graduated from giving up, to not even trying. This pattern was not conducive to having an interesting, well-rounded life.

While I knew learning the guitar was going to stimulate the same feelings, I knew something had to change.

I Made Learning to Struggle Part of the Goal

I now know the ability to struggle is a crucial life skill.

Up until that point, I’d only seen struggling as a personal weakness. A source of shame to be avoided, not embraced. What I didn’t realize was just how essential the ability to struggle is.

Struggling is the way you get to mastery.

We Always Learn Successfully

We often think we failed at learning something because we cannot do that thing.

That’s because we don’t think about the systemic nature of learning. You cannot just learn one thing in isolation. There are ALWAYS related learnings.

In addition to learning how to struggle, I also learned music theory and why all pop songs sound similar. I learned to appreciate the complexity behind seemingly simple guitar riffs, and just how much of a genius John Mayer is.

Oh yeah, I also learned that with enough struggling I can learn how to play Wonderwall. (Just don’t ask me to play it now…)

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