thoughts on practicing

ACHIEVE WHAT YOU ARE AIMING FOR

(this goes for anything really) there are a couple things that can help you along the way:

• First of all you should have a passion or desire to learn and improve and/or curiosity on how this works. IF YOUR GOAL IS STRONG ENOUGH YOUR WAY THERE BECOMES THAT MUCH CLEARER!
• PLAY WITH OTHER MUSICIANS ideally ones that are further along in their musical development so you can learn by doing! No matter how far along in you own development your are go out and play with other people without being afraid of making mistakes always remember Albert Einstein said: “a person who never made a mistake never tried anything new” and “we never fail until we stop trying.” Victor Wooten also explains this concept beautifully here: 
• Further you should work hard on your craft that means soak up all the information you can get and PRACTICE DELIBERATELY. The concept of practicing is often misunderstood or executed in a not very efficient fashion. You should PRACTICE FOR RESULTS and not for hours. While practicing you should be focused and concentrated on what you are doing to get the most out of your practice time. Paying that much attention costs energy and is draining. Over time you are expanding your ability to concentrate and will get better and better over longer periods of time – still even after a long time of deliberate practicing 90min seem to be a critical mark for the ability to concentrate. I suggest 30 sessions with small breaks in between and a longer break after 3 sessions.
• PRACTICE WHAT YOU ARE NOT GOOD AT – this alone will save you a lot of practice time! Set yourself smart goals! Small goals along the way to reach your ultimate goal.
• RECORD YOURSELF and take notes of your progress. While in the middle of an exercise you might not be able to realize or hear everything that’s going on but by listen back you’ll instantly learn a lot about your performance and since we are our worst critics you will know right away what is good and what needs improvement.
• Try to INTEGRATE PRACTICING IN YOUR EVERYDAY LIFE very much like brushing your teeth something that just belongs to your daily routine. Everything we do for 10 days straight becomes a habit everything we do for 6 months becomes second nature like an addiction you’ll never stop practicing again! How much time you are willing to spend on it is a question of how far you want to get – ever heard of malcolm gladwell’s 10.000 hour rule?
• GET A TEACHER! Someone to guide your progress and feed you with information and perspectives that you wouldn’t necessarily discover on your own. Take and learn all the concepts and informations and make them your own expand on them. While there is a great treasure of knowledge floating around online, in magazines and on dvds the first hand experience is that much more efficient. You get the chance to ask and get feedback right away. Ideally this teacher would be someone local that you can hang with and get to see at shows too.