I’ll preface this by saying that taking up anything new can be challenging. Whether it is a new language, martial arts, a new sport as well as a new instrument, sometimes we can forget how hard it is to not only learn but unlearn our assumptions about learning new things.

I’ll also say that I’m still nowhere near as good as the 15 year old kid that comes into the lesson after I am done. I hear him practicing and he seems to have something I don’t. Maybe it’s that he doesn’t have much else going on. Maybe it’s the fact that I am a busy professional. Whatever it is, I still suck. But that’s ok.

I’m going to be a bit more open here and say that learning the guitar at my age (and I’m not going to say how old but you can take a guess) has changed how I view myself and challenges. I’ll share my thoughts below.

One of the most challenging things I’ve come across in my time of learning to play the guitar is that it’s really difficult to teach yourself new things. In fact, I think it’s so much harder the older we get because we are set in our ways. The habits we form as adults become our waking life, and for most of us that doesn’t involve challenging ourselves to learn a new instrument.

If our brains start out like fresh balls of clay, mine must be a half formed into a vase by now. I know I shouldn’t talk down to myself like this, but frankly it feels like I should probably just call it a day some days that I practice.

I’ve since learned about the term “neuroplasticity” when it comes to learning. As children, our brains are malleable, and we can learn things on the fly. Of course, we don’t have all the refinement in place, but we definitely have all the pieces we need. When we grow as adults, our brains become less malleable to a process known as “myelin sheathing”, whereby our brains literally form a quick path over a certain amount of neurons.

By practicing every day, what we’re building in new habits. It’s humbling, but I really enjoy it (most days).

I still remember in my first month, sitting down to play and hearing my teacher play a recording of one of his other students. It’s pretty incredible to think that a 12 year old could be playing at such an unbelievable level after only one year. In fact, I couldn’t help but think that I could get to that at some point.

It was only after my first few months that I realised this was an impossible dream. I was almost ready to give up. I wanted to cry. I wanted to throw my guitar away. But then I remembered, I’m not a child. I have other stuff on. I also am not gifted with big hands, which helps a lot I’m told. In fact, when all is said and done I could be a very average player for the rest of my life. But that’s not the point.

The point is I sat down and did something. It’s humbling, but soon we remember that no matter what we do there will always probably be someone younger and better than us. This humbling feeling has helped me in my days at work, and I’m absolutely killing it now because of this knowledge.

If there’s one piece of advice I can give, it’s in the words of Kendrick Lamar: Sit down. Be humble.