In our culture, we are not very proud of making mistakes. We don’t like making them because it shines a bad light on us. It makes us look incompetent and unprofessional, so we rather play it safe.

But what if I told you, that you should make more mistakes? What if I told you, that in order to maximize your inner genius, you need to embrace them? What if I told you, that your improvement depends upon them?

Why learning and mistakes go hand in hand?

“The only sure way to avoid making mistakes is to have no new ideas.” A. Einstein

Let’s face it.

We are not perfect and we will never be.

We are human beings endlessly striving to improve ourselves. Our quest to become the best we can be is never-ending. Every single day, from the moment we are born to the moment we die, is an opportunity for us to get better. There is always space for improvement.

This can be scary, however. Acknowledging that we are a work in progress means admitting our imperfection. We are destined for struggles and setbacks and yet we fight it with all our might. In our quick-fix culture where everything can be solved in 5 minutes, there is no place for errors. We need to get things done as fast as possible.

In my previous article on successful learning techniques, we have talked about how embracing desirable difficulties enhances our learning curve. We have also mentioned that forgetting plays an essential part of successful learning.

All these techniques we have discussed have one thing in common. All of them come from belief that in order to acquire durable knowledge and skills, we need to make learning harder. In other words, we need to make more mistakes. We need to allow errors to happen so we can correct them.

Learning is supposed to be hard. We are supposed to struggle when we learn new things. Setbacks are not only expected, they are desirable and beneficial for us. The more mistakes we make, the more opportunities we have to correct them and improve ourselves.

If we want to make our guitar practice effective and efficient, we need to practice in a way that prepares us for real-world scenarios. And for most aspiring guitarists that means live shows and performances. We need to think about complexity, variety and unpredictability of live conditions in our practice room, so we can perform well when it matters.

If we rely on artificial supports that won’t be available during live performance, we are setting ourselves up for failure. We need to come up with a practice plan that forces us to make mistakes when there is still time to correct them.

How do we do that?

How to make more “desirable” mistakes?

The father of deliberate practice, Anders K. Ericsson, suggests that if you want to be really good at something, you need to push past your comfort zone. You need to constantly challenge yourself, so your brain won’t shut down. We’ve already talked about how to make any guitar exercise insanely efficient and also how interleaved practice, spacing and varying your practice tasks can help you to do just that.

There is one important thing when you are designing your practice schedule that you should keep in mind. Difficulties and struggles are only “desirable” when they can be overcome. You need to aim for a sweet spot where things are not too easy, nor too hard.

Spacing your practice sessions too much will make it incredibly difficult to remember what you’ve been practicing previously, varying too many tasks can make a practice session chaotic, some exercises that you come up with can be too difficult. It takes some practice to design your guitar workout properly. The more you study what works for you, the better results you will get.

One final thing I would like to add is that probably the most important thing is to develop the right mindset toward practicing. If you consider difficulties, struggles and mistakes as a sign that you are on the right path, your learning will skyrocket. Having the right attitude and understanding will help you overcome any hindrances.

Please tell me, what is your view on making mistakes, embracing “desirable difficulties” and making learning harder in order to make it durable?

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