You’re completely right about attrition. It’s true on more levels than one! Staying power is often underestimated, but IMHO it also requires that you’re careful

You’re completely right about attrition. It’s true on more levels than one! Staying power is often underestimated, but IMHO it also requires that you’re careful about not burning out. That’s where keeping things enjoyable comes in. If it’s not enjoyable in the long term (or at the very least tolerable), then IMHO it’s not worth doing. I’ve definitively also been pretty stubborn at times, especially when I found a problem that really was in the way of achieving some musical goal (or any goal, for that matter). So, I’d sit down and angrily butt my head against the wall until that wall cracked. Though in pedagogical terms that probably isn’t the best way to attack a problem. Butting your head against an impregnable wall is really demotivating in the long run. In turn that can be damaging to your long-term motivation. But I also think it comes down to how you approach such problems. The first trick is to only ever attack achievable problems. But if it’s too simple, then you also risk that it becomes boring. At least if you don’t vary the tasks. So, you need to up the ante a bit. The harder a problem is that you can still solve, the more mastery you gain. In turn that is highly motivating. So you need to find that zone; that zone of proximal development as it were, wherever that is.^1 (Sorry, pedagogy is an old war wound I have from working many years as a teacher.) That doesn’t mean that I never try stuff that I know I won’t ever be able to master on the fly. I’ve also tried my hand at some things I know is seriously difficult, such as Polyphia licks, and… Well, let’s just say I still have some work to do lol. But I know I’ll keep at it because I it’s a fun challenge for me. If it wasn’t, then I wouldn’t find any joy in trying, and then there would be neither motivation nor mastery in it. If I already know that the problem is unsolvable, I approach it more as an experiment, to see how far I can get. And I always do it from the perspective of the joy of exploration. This is how I approach, say, Polyphia’s stuff. I already know that I probably won’t be able to figure it out on the fly, because that stuff is hard. But then it’s also not a problem to fail. It’s only an experiment, after all, since their music already brings me so much joy. So, I’d say that’s one way I keep motivated despite those things being really, really foreign to me in terms of guitar mastery. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_of_proximal_development https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_of_proximal_development