Fifteen years ago around the holidays I got drawn in to an infomercial on QVC. It was some artist named Esteban selling a guitar and DVD’s with guitar lessons. He was playing familiar songs and made it look so easy! I probably paid a couple hundred dollars, convinced that it was time for me to learn how to play the guitar. I have no musical background or any latent talent. I just wanted to learn how to play a few songs.

It didn’t go well.

My hands and fingers are not built to play the guitar. My fingers are short and stubby, and I didn’t practice long enough to develop calluses on my fingers to avoid the pain of pressing the steel strings. This doesn’t mean I can’t learn to play the guitar. It just means that without natural talent and a natural physical advantage, it’s going to be a long and difficult road. That means I need to really want it if I want to achieve my goal.

I pushed on by watching the videos over and over again. I was reading the booklet with the lessons. I was giving my fingers a break from actual guitar playing.

I remember in one of the videos, Esteban explained the proper way to hold the neck of the guitar. Your thumb is supposed to be placed on the back of the neck, not curling over the top of the guitar. This position made it even more difficult for me to play. 

Ever since that lesson, I have noticed how professional guitar players hold their guitars. Guess what? They all hold them with their thumbs curled over the neck. 

Maybe Esteban was not the right teacher for me. Maybe I would have been better off getting lessons from a live person who could help me determine a style and method that works for me. Maybe I was too busy watching the videos and studying how to play the guitar instead of just playing.

I’m a lifelong learner. It is certainly better to keep an open mind and learn new things than to be close-minded and ignorant. But learning can become an addictive loop. You can get caught up in the act of learning and you want to know every detail and make sure you have perfect information before you get started with the task at hand.

Sometimes you need to close the book, shut off the podcast, turn off the videos, and just do the thing you are trying to learn how to do. 

Stop learning, start doing.