At this point in the course, I’ll bet that your practice routine has derailed for at least one day, probably more. Don’t be discouraged if you’ve fallen off the wagon – forming any new habit is a challenge. In this session we’ll discuss some of the common reasons why practice routines slip – and some strategies for getting back into the groove.
Forgetting to practice
Early on, while you’re still trying to form a new habit, you may find yourself suddenly realizing you’ve missed your practice time for today. Habits are fragile in the beginning, so it helps to set reminders for yourself – set them up so that you know you’ll see them at the appropriate time. As we discussed back in Section 1.5, you can use notes posted around your house or you can set your smartphone to remind you.
Procrastination & Overwhelm
Everybody procrastinates, and many of us procrastinate chronically. Ongoing procrastination can become really upsetting, as you usually end up thinking constantly about the project you’re avoiding while making no actual progress on it.
If you find yourself delaying more than you’d like, try breaking your larger goals down into smaller, more approachable tasks. Thinking about how you have to write an entire album’s worth of songs can be scary. But what if you focused on writing one song this week? Or, smaller still, what if you focused on just brainstorming chorus melodies for twenty-five minutes today?
Focus on a small, manageable task that you can tackle in a single short session today. What’s the very next step? Set your timer, focus for twenty-five minutes on that single small task, and reward yourself at the end. Nothing feels better than making a little progress on something you’ve been putting off. No matter how long you’ve been procrastinating, you can make today different.
Lack of interest, lack of motivation
If at the end of a long day you find yourself feeling unmotivated, you’re not alone. Getting excited about theory minutiae can be a challenge. I like theory, but I still have to talk myself into studying.
In previous sections, we’ve discussed a few strategies for dealing with lack of motivation: be sure to connect what you’re learning to goals that you want, and bribe yourself with a reward at the end of each practice session.
Be consistent with this reward! With repeated prizes for good behavior, your brain will begin to associate practice time with pleasurable things. This association can take a week or more to form, but once it does, showing up to practice becomes much easier. I’ve survived many a tough session by thinking about that rich cup of dark roast coffee that’s waiting for me afterward.
Burnout
Burnout is what happens when you work too much for too little reward. With ineffective learning strategies, it’s possible to spend lots of time and effort and still come up short – that’s why it’s best to keep practice sessions short and sustainable. That’s why this workshop is called “The Art of Daily Practice” instead of “The Art of Weekly Practice” or “The Art of Last-Minute Practice”. Our brains learn more effectively with small daily efforts. If you can feel the burnout starting to happen, it is important to take a step back and see how you can de-stress yourself from it, this could be something like taking a walk each day or carving out some time for a specific exercise, some may use the Best CBD gummies available to them as there have been people who applaud their calming properties. However, this is not something that should be gone into lightly and must be discussed with a doctor first.
Discouragement and Doubt
Self-doubt is natural, and even healthy. Even the best artists, who’ve achieved great success and attracted thousands of listeners, sometimes doubt their own abilities when they face criticism or other obstacles.
Self-doubt can be debilitating for some, though. There may be times when you compare yourself to other instrumentalists, singers, or writers, and feel hopelessly far from the kind of abilities that you want to have. During such moments of despair, it can be helpful to shift your focus away from comparing yourself to others or judging yourself in relation to those goals… and put your focus instead on what’s right in front of you: how many minutes of practice you’ll spend today, and what you’re going to spend it on.
Try to find pleasure in the process of learning. We are all works-in-progress, and this is a journey. Enjoy it.
Disorganization
Back in Session 1.5, you might recall that I offered a friendly warning about keeping your practice space clear of clutter, and neat enough so that you can easily find and use everything you need. Practice is already difficult enough without little nuisance distractions, so if you’ve found that laundry or unrelated things from other areas of your life have been creeping into your practice space, take a little time to neaten up. It seems like a small thing, but it makes your practice space a friendlier place to spend time. Put everything you need in one place.
Conflicting priorities & interruptions
Many songwriters have busy lives, complete with careers, kids, and coursework. During your short periods of daily practice, remove all the potential distractions you can: silence your smartphone and leave it at the door. Bargain with your family for a little alone time, and offer to repay the favor for your partner or your kids. When interruptions do come up, practice letting them slip by as you refocus on your practice.
Not knowing what to practice next
Whether you write lyrics, sing, play an instrument, or all three, songwriting can be a lifelong pursuit. There’s no end to the things you could learn to invent more infectious melodies, write punchier lines of lyric, and learn to play your own work well in front of an audience. Given the vast number of things you could potentially spend your time learning, what should you practice next? The answer to that question really depends on your individual goals and on which parts of this craft you find yourself most interested in.
In the next session, we’ll start exploring your unique path through songwriting for the months and years ahead.