The Top 10 Reasons Why You Suck At Playing Guitar

You don't 'need' to play guitar enough.

If you desire to become a great guitarist, you have to want it badly enough to sacrifice other parts of your life to devote to practice.

This doesn't mean you have to give up your social life and never take the guitar out of your hands until your Jimi Hendrix?

But it does mean you need to set aside time to practice and commit to actually it.

If you really want to learn guitar then you shouldn't feel the need to put it off till later to make time for some television!

You have limiting beliefs about your ability.

Believe it or not, many people have hidden limiting beliefs which stop them from progressing into the guitarists they want to be.

Do your friends/spouse/parents knock you and think you're wasting your time? Don't let anyone put you off from doing something that's important to you.

Even the greatest players had to start somewhere! There is no such thing as 'natural ability'. Nobody was born playing guitar, they had to learn too. So don't be hard on yourself if you can't play as well as you'd like just yet - and don't let anyone stop you from trying.

Don't listen to anyone's negativity!

You don't know how to practice.

Practice just isn't as simple as you have been led to believe. Many people just get their guitar and run through some exercises, a song, or a guitar tab the same way they have done it hundreds of times before, and they just aren't getting any benefit or improvement from doing that. So you need to know how to practice effectively.

You don't put enough time aside for practice.

If you want to get really good on guitar, then you need to be setting a side a set period of time each day or each week for practice.

It's okay to vary it from week to week if you like, but you have to commit to actually practicing regularly otherwise it's going to take you much more time to improve.

You don't set goals.

It's important to have some kind of goal in your practice. How can you get anywhere without first knowing where you're going? By setting yourself targets to aim for in your practice, you will get their much faster.

You Don't focus on one thing at a Time.

You need to have some focus when you practice. You need to be aware of what you're trying to do, and not trying to learn too many things at once.

Many people try to learn too many songs, too many tabs, or too many guitar method books all at the same time and suffer from information overload.

How many songs can you play a part of, but not the whole thing? You need to focus on one thing at a time!

You Don't Play Slowly Enough At First

It's important not to just play something as fast as possible, or as fast as you have heard some other guy play it on the radio. You need to take things slow - and play slowly enough so you don't keep making mistakes.

You Try To Learn Things You Aren't Ready For

It's important that you know you're capabilities. This isn't to say you shouldn't strive to improve, but you must remember to start at the beginning.

You can't take any short-cuts without having to pay for it in the long-run.

You're Taking Lessons From Someone Who Can't Teach

You may have a friend who can play guitar, or some guy down the road used to give lessons 25 years ago - but just because someone can play guitar, doesn't actually mean they have the skills to teach guitar.

The two things are actually very different. And if you're not learning from someone who knows how to teach, you could be causing yourself more problems than your solving by having lessons from this person.

You Don't Have A Good Guitar

You don't need to break the bank by getting that $1000 guitar just yet, but you at least need a fairly decent guitar that will inspire you to pick it up and play it!

Many of the cheap starter packs for beginners just aren't up to scratch, and cause many budding guitar players to give up in frustration without giving it a fair chance.

Vince Taylor is the author of Guitar Practice Secrets. A step-by-step system that transforms frustrated guitarists into killer guitarists - fast! Visit his site if you want to  learn how to play guitar like a pro.