Over the past 3 years, I’ve met with one person after another who state, “I used to play the guitar, but I’m not into it anymore”. I’ve also met people who confess, “I’ve tried to learn, but I just don’t have the patience for it.”

I’m sure there’s lots of reasons why you guys hang up your chances of being musically great. I don’t want to talk about why, though. I want to talk about what you can do about it.

Just for you are ten effective ways to jump back on the horse. They are not in any chronological order and can be picked from at your own desire.

1. Take up your weapon

First, the most obvious thing to do is pick your instrument back up. This is where a lot of people will procrastinate. Sadly, they won’t begin to make it anywhere like this.

Set a day and time to dust off your weapon (whatever it may be), re-tune those strings, adjust those skins, or “do re me fa so la te do” as needed. This could pass as the one thing to start up the rest of the engine for you. But there is a chance you’ll have no idea where to go from here.

That’s where the rest of this list comes into play.

2. Manifest your influences

What sparked your desire to play in the first place? Was it a single artist? Was it a whole genre? Was it the friend down the road who blew you away with their playing?

Listening to your favorite artists can be just the thing to get the wheels turning again. Your influences to play are vital seeds to your inspiration. Chances are, the sparks died sometime after your mind and heart disconnected from the idea of these influences via life changes, distractions, or a simple burn out.

Tell you what, lay on your bed later, throw in that Jimi Hendrix, or that Rush album, and relive the songs that started it all.

3. Meditate

You probably don’t meditate. Or maybe you do. Either way, its still good to realize the beneficial effects it can have on your musicianship. If meditation isn’t your thing, rest assured, I’m not talking about crossing your legs putting your fingers together and humming.

Tonight, when you go to bed, just lay there and contemplate on the idea of you playing your instrument. No, in fact, put on some headphones, throw on your favorite tunes, and imagine you playing them in front of a crowd, or even just at all (whatever you prefer). I used this method as a natural habit for most of my childhood. *wink*

4. Watch other musicians

There’s a chance you’ve sat in front of another guitarist, or drummer, or whatever, and awed at their impeccable playing skills. “I wish I could play like that!” Bingo… You now have another resource of inspiration.

Watching is a necessary part of being a musician anyway. This is how we study, learn, and get creative ideas from each other. Sometimes it’s also fun to nit-pick the mistakes another musician makes in your head. Just don’t nit-pick out loud unless urgently necessary.

5. Begin private lessons

You might be self-taught. Or you were probably taught by an instructor. In any case, depending on your current level of skill, picking up private lessons can become the central aspect of building back up your inspiration (and your practicing altogether). This doesn’t just refer to tutoring, but also self-study. Music sheets, tabulature, videos, and other resources are always effective tools to get the gears going again.

6. Develop a schedule

If you are reading this, you’re not too busy to practice at least a little every day or week. So, I highly advise implementing a regular practice schedule. The idea is to work it cleanly around your regular day or week. It might be one hour a week, or 3 hours a day, depending on your lively condition. The most important thing, however, is to KEEP TO YOUR SCHEDULE.

How about this – take it a little at a time to begin with to test the waters of the plan. If it works smooth, extend the time slot. You might start off one hour a week. If it goes perfectly and you have extra free time left over, extend it to two hours a week (distributed however you’d like – all at once, or maybe just 20 minutes throughout each day). Keep to this pattern until you’ve calibrated it just right.

7. Implement mental practice

Sometimes I find myself out in public tapping my fingers on a table or a seat, creating cool rhythms and beats while I’m waiting on something. When I’m by myself at home with nothing to do for the moment, I’ll notice one of my favorite songs playing in my head, or on the radio, and I bust out some air drums to the song. This sounds silly, but it’s actually an effective form of “mental practice” and you can do it with just about any kind of music.

It doesn’t even have to include physical movement. It’s like meditating on a song in the middle of the day. But this includes air-guitar, air-drums, finger-tapping, piano-tapping, or just imagining the methods in your head, humming the lyrical melodies or anything else you can think of. After performing these little actions over some time, it becomes a regular habit. As a result, you will be passively developing and sustaining creativity, musical memory, visual imagination, audible imagination, and even get some good physical exercise in.

8. Maintain your weapon

If you can’t get yourself to play your instrument, try this. When cleaning your room, or your house, just randomly go over to your instrument, get it out, and start cleaning it. Tune the strings, wipe the keys down, clean the pick guard, anything to get yourself to notice the poor thing. She’s probably been missing your attention, and even just a good cleaning will brighten her spirits even if just a little. This is a great way to get your subconscious to recognize “Hey, it’s been too long since I’ve played. Maybe I’ll pick her up later today and play around a little for the hell of it!”

9. Utilize your mental state

Your relationship with your instrument could have fallen apart due to an idea developing in your head that playing (more specifically practicing) is something of a chore. This mostly refers to you who’ve had a formal tutor who gave you “homework”…. ew. What a bad word to give such a beautiful thing.

This is what you must realize. Playing and practicing is NOT homework, or anything of the sort. It is NOT a chore. It is optional of course. What you must understand is playing and practicing is your time to express yourself. That last sentence alone probably doesn’t spring much out of the full idea so let me elaborate with a suggestion here.

When you are stressed out, angry with somebody or something, pick up your weapon and channel it all out into music. On the other hand, when you are having a rarely wonderful day and you are excited about something, pick it up and let all that positive energy surge its way out! And remember – it doesn’t have to be pretty. It can be a complete random fart of noise of any kind, or it can be a blissful, spontaneous masterpiece out of nowhere. IT ACTUALLY HAPPENS!

You and I, as musicians have a battery inside of us. Some of us call it our “chi”. It’s a ball of emotional energy that builds up over time from stress and fun. If it’s not spent from over time, it can become too large to bear and bad things can happen. Picking up our instrument and venting with it is an important necessity for us to manage this battery. It is (or will be) the largest, most significant source of your most magnificent works.

10. Surround yourself with music

I once read in a self-development blog that one of the best things I can do to change a habit is to alter my surroundings to support this change. For example, if I wanted to loose weight, then ridding the fridge or pantry of unhealthy, fattening foods will be a supporting step in doing this.

I personally recommend using this method for developing and sustaining your inspiration to play. Surround yourself with music! I’m not just talking about listening to music everywhere you go. Subscribe to a musician’s magazine (Guitar World or Musicians Friend for example), connect with other musicians in your area, watch them play, jam with them, talk about music and theory, maybe even go out and buy new accessories for your instrument every paycheck or two. Doing this helps keep your head in the game and can be considered the meat and potatoes of sustaining motivation as well as building ideas, productivity, and even getting you closer to your dream.

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It’s necessary to say, this list isn’t, by any means, complete or absolute.

What about you?

Did you ever fall (or come close to falling) from your inspiration to play? What did you do to jump back into it?