How many times have you referred to a guitar player that you consider to be great as either naturally talented or naturally gifted? If you have, you are not alone, many people have done the same things. Many people also believe that natural talent is something that is a gift that is only give to a select group of people and not them. The truth is that great musicians are naturally talented but that is only part of the equation, the other part (the part that most people overlook or don’t think about) is how did they become naturally talented?
Natural talent is a learned skill and that means that you are able to be naturally talented. You just need to learn and follow the process.
How Do You Become Naturally Talented?
If you want to truly know how and why people become naturally talented you have understand that natural talent is a learned skill and then you must also understand that if that you have the ability to become naturally talented. Yes, you are reading that correctly, you can become naturally talented, you have that ability right now, you need to first learn what it takes to be naturally gifted or talented and then start applying that desire to your guitar playing, starting today!
5 Steps To Becoming Naturally Talented or Gifted:
1) Working With A Guitar Teacher – When it comes to being a great, naturally talented guitar player, the easiest way to accomplish this is to find a guitar teacher in your area who can help you reach your goals and keep you motivated to improve your guitar playing. The right guitar teacher help you make fast and consistent progress in your playing. They will help you every step of the way to make sure that you reach your potential.
2) Outwork Everybody Else – We live in a time where people constantly want instant gratification and don’t want to put in the work. They give up when they aren’t instantly awesome at something and music is no exception. In order to be great you have to understand that being great requires going through a process. It won’t happen overnight and there are going to be bumps in the road. The great ones understand this and when it comes to obstacles, they simple do whatever it takes to overcome that obstacle. Time doesn’t matter to them, the end result is what matters.
3) Making and Keeping A Practice Plan – This is the most hidden gem of being a great guitar player. In order to get the most out of your practice, you have to plan it out. All the great guitar players do or have done this. They know the value of focusing on what they want to accomplish in both the big and the small picture. Let’s use Steve Vai as an example. Steve Vai had 10 and 30 hour practice regiments. Was all of that planned out or did he just pick up his guitar and start playing, working on whatever he happened to think about that particular second? He planned it out. He knew what he wanted to accomplish and he did the necessary work to get there and that is why is he such a great guitar player. You can do this too. I’m not saying that you have to have 10 and/or 30 hour practice sessions but you do need to have a plan, regardless of the length of your practice time. Off you have a solid plan in place you will save hours and hours of wasted time because you have already figured out, ahead of time, what you need to improve on and the steps you will take in order to do so. That isn’t to say that everything is going to be fixed in one shot but your chances of improving go way up just by creating and sticking to a practice plan.
4) Working Through Obstacles – At some point in your guitar playing there will come a time where you struggle to improve in a certain area (or more than one area). That is perfectly normal, it happens to all of us. The guitar players who are naturally talented are the ones that keep working through those obstacles when they come up and don’t ignore them to go play things that are easy for them to do. Nothing wrong with taking a break when you are practicing something that is hard to do but make sure to come back to it, if not that day then the next day. Sometimes just giving yourself a break and coming back fresh will make something that initially seemed really hard, easier to do.
5) Commit To Success – If you make the decision ahead of time that you aren’t going to quit and stick to it when you hit a bump in the road, you have already given yourself a leg up on most other guitar players. In your mind you have already made the commitment to see this through, you are committing to do whatever it takes to become the guitar player that you want to be. Most people do not make this decision out of fear that they won’t succeed and they allow themselves to give up quickly. Great musicians never gave up, even if they thought temporarily that they wanted to.
If you studied the practice habits of any great musician (doesn’t have to be a guitar player necessarily) you will quickly see that them becoming great was no accident. You would see someone who was driven to being great and you would see the 4 steps (and then some) at work on a daily basis. Whether they wanted to become famous or not is a different discussion but there is no doubt that they wanted to be great. The good news is that if they can become great you can too you if you follow the same path.
You also have to deal with that skeptical voice in your head that is going to tell you that you can’t do it. The best way to deal with it is to ignore it and keep moving towards your goals. As you reach your goals, that voice will get quieter and quieter. This is where many aspiring guitar players fail. They give in too quickly when doubt starts to creep in. They convince themselves that they don’t “have it” and aren’t naturally talented. They are still naturally talented but sell themselves short by not following through.
In Conclusion
You can be as great as you want to be but you must first decide that you are going to be great. After you make that choice you have to follow through by doing the things that will make you great. There aren’t any short cuts of magic potions that are going to make you great. Follow the 4 steps outlined above, watch your guitar playing continually improve and then you will have people calling you naturally talented.
Take the next step to improve your guitar playing, click on the button below to tell me about yourself. We can work together to get you the results that you have been looking for.