One thing that I try to emphasize with students (or anyone that’s willing to listen) is that achieving anything worthwhile typically requires dedication and commitment.  In pacing terms, musical proficiency isn’t a 50 yard dash – it’s a marathon.  It something that requires a lot of training and an understanding of pacing.  

.

If you go full bore and don’t pace yourself properly you’ll burn yourself out before you reach your goals.  

Not reaching your goals is also a possibility if you don’t push yourself hard enough.

.

Keeping an end goal in sight can be a difficult thing to maintain.  This will be a general theme that will thread its way through a series of short articles that will get posted here regarding the general topic of practicing.  In my own life, tackling 2000 pages of manuscript and trying to wrestle them in a series of books is both invigorating and overwhelming.

.

One site that has posted a lot of really good observations about maintaining goals and focus is Mike Torres’ refocuser site (http://www.refocuser.com).  There are some really salient points there and for a more immediate resource in goal setting you may want to head over to his 12 goals site (http://www.12goals.com). Some good general information that can be directly applied to getting things done on the guitar (or maybe in other areas of your life as well).

.

Thanks for reading!

-SC

.