Practice Makes Perfect, Except When It Doesn’t

A lot of people ask me, how long will it take to be able to play an instrument. Then they ask the price. I remember when I was in the market for a “ripped body”, I went to all the gyms around and asked about their personal training program. Joe Wicks be damned.

Here you are surrounded by weights and sweat. You see people with the physique you want… you see people with the opposite doing strange things with weights but I digress. Point is, you are surrounded by your potential transformation. Years later, I got about 80% there. I host a solid 3 1/2 pack with room for growth and I am ok with that. It’s not a sprint it’s a marathon for sure. I am very consistent with my approach and I get results- maybe not all because I sure do love pizza and ice cream but I allow myself to enjoy life’s little treats because I don’t think they have chocolate in heaven.

Then take an approach I had about 2 years ago. I had reached a point where my LDL cholesterol was too high. Being that I didn’t want to go on any medicine for it, I decided to drop that extra 20 pounds and so I can manage things better. I did it in 4 months and you’d think that I would be happy with it

I was miserable. I couldn’t maintain the weight because of my muscle mass and i didn’t feel right.

Bottom line, I am still evolving.

To do a 180, here is something that absolutely crushes me when parents signed their kids at Real brave. The child is probably all over the place because they are 11 but there is interest. After a month-

“Eh, not seeing results. She’s just not practicing. I don’t see any progress. She doesn’t sound like Gwen Stefani“

Then they quit.

This is a trend that has gotten more popular over the past few years. Find the thing that sticks with you and you can see results.

But is that the right approach? What if I lifted a weight for a week and decided:

“Eh I am not seeing results.”

Sure would have a different physique for sure.

The trend of stopping something when things get too hard or too expensive. The trend of letting someone quit before they even start?

It has to stop.

Pick a few things… fail at them. But continue. Support the person doing it. Get a result after a year!

But don’t stop.

I never practiced guitar either. If my mother let me stop, I never would have met my wife, I never would have had the amazing life experiences I had, I never would have written songs featured in TV, I never would have been nominated for a Grammy, I never would have opened Real Brave and I never would have had the opportunity to help 12,000 people learn an instrument.

Learning an instrument is a journey. Not a stop on the train.