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When learning to play guitar you will come across many setbacks and problems, but you will have to overcome these if you are to succeed. One way to beat the problems and setbacks is to give yourself something to be proud of, and you can offset one failure in your mind with one success and feel that you are at least breaking even. In reality, taking this approach is proving your success, since even considering the concept of overcoming adversity by gaining success makes you a potential winner.

So let's not waste any more time. Here are ten things you can do to ensure success.

1. Motivate Yourself. The way to self-motivation is to achieve something on a regular basis. You can decide to learn something new every day or every week, or to master one technique each week. What you decide to do is unimportant - what is important is doing it, so set yourself realistic goals and motivate yourself by achieving them. An example? Learn one new chord each day, or learn one new scale each week, or one new riff or lick each week. But don't set impossible challenges: your goals must be achievable.
2. Develop Self-Belief. Believe that you can achieve anything and that learning to play guitar is a simple task for you. You can develop this by having a belief in your own ability. Too many people do not, and you can achieve whatever you set your mind to if you believe in yourself.
3. Practice Time Management. Your time is important to you; so if you can learn to manage your time, then you find that your goals and aspirations become more achievable. Thus, when you pick up your guitar, pick it up to learn. Every minute you spend practicing a scale or a chord ingrains it into your muscle memory so that when you have to pull it out in fast lick it will come without thought. Never, ever allow yourself to be saying, "I wish I had spent more time on that." Your time is yours to plan and use, so plan it and use it.
4. Visualize Your Success. When you visualize your success, your success will tend to come. Positive thinking has a habit of leading to success; and if you can visualize your success, then it has a habit of coming to you. So visualize yourself as a great guitarist and take the steps to make yourself one, then it will be more likely to happen for you.
5. Listen to Others Play. Guitar lessons are only part of the process of learning to play guitar. The other part is to know how others are playing. Purchase recordings of your guitar heroes playing and listen to them. Don't just listen to admire the music, but listen to HOW they are playing, rather than WHAT. Try to identify their techniques and then learn them. Do what they do, only better.
6. Plan for Success. Your plan is to succeed, but that is only part of your plan in learning to play guitar. What will you do with your new skills? Have you a plan for when you have learned, and what you will do then? Will you form a band or just play by yourself? Will you become professional or just jam to the radio? It doesn't matter, but you must have an end point in mind. That will help you to succeed.
7. Work on Your Weakness. Everybody has at least one weakness in their playing. Perhaps yours is your thumb, or your handling of deep bass notes. Possibly you find it difficult to get the weight of your fingers on the bottom frets so that your high notes have a bit of a buzz about them. Whatever it is, work on it and resolve it. Aim for one weakness a month and cure it before the next month comes around with another weakness you have identified.
8. Copy Your Heroes. Find out how your favorite guitarists got where they got, and also what methods and techniques they used to get where you want to be. Lightning does strike twice, and you can use their methods to get where they are now. They might be strategic business techniques or even guitar playing techniques. Whatever they are, learn from the successful.
9. Nothing Is Too Little. Don't believe that anything is too little for you when learning to play guitar. There is nothing wimpish about learning scales and chords: were that the case then every good guitarist is a wimp, and that is OK. Master the basics since they are the essentials. Nothing is too little for you to master.
10. Choose Your Preference. Not all the best guitar players play lead. Try all forms of guitar when learning and you might find that the intricacies of rhythm appeal to you, or that the pounding beat of bass gets your blood going. Perhaps your future lies in classical guitar or maybe blues is in your blood. Find out before you are set in a rut you would rather not be in.

Keywords: learning to play guitar, play guitar

About the Author
Andre Sanchez,