3 Tips For Forming New Habits

The start of a new year means the start of new challenges and new learning goals. When you reflect on back on the progress you made in 2019, you realise just how far you've come! We want to help you make 2020 another year of music brilliance and to do so, it means forming some new habits that will keep your music practise top notch.

1. They say practise makes perfect...

A man called Malcolm Gladwell spoke about an interesting point in his book "Outliers", that if you practiced a skill for 10'000 hours, you will have mastered it. That's a lot of practising! But when you break it down, it doesn't sound too difficult. If you practised for an hour every day of the year, that's already 365 hours of practising under your belt. Imagine all the skills and knowledge you will have learnt in that time!

Look at your schedule and see when the best time is for you to fit in just one hour of practise time. The results will definitely show, even just a few months.

2. Take it one step at a time...

You want to set realistic learning goals and break them down into smaller steps. You can use the SMART goals technique to do this (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time). Learn more about how to set SMART goals here.

By breaking down your bigger goals into smaller ones, you can celebrate the small wins and stop yourself from feeling disheartened when things don't go to plan. We've found a great Music Diary you can use, created by Rockschool, to help you track and organise your practise sessions. Click here to download!

3. Know when to take a break...

We're all human, sometimes it takes us longer to grasp things and learn new elements. It's important to recognise when to take a break so that you can come back to it another time and enjoy your practise, rather than getting upset or frustrated you can't do something. You'll feel a lot better for it!

I hope these tips help you to accomplish your goals this year. Happy Strumming!