Imagine yourself having the skills that you desire. Focus on that and concentrate. Convince yourself that you can do it. Convince yourself that you are already on your way to reaching your first goal - because you are. Its easier to manifest your desires when you can imagine yourself already in possession of it. Keep your positive mental attitude always.
Of course you will be working on many guitar skills: various guitar techniques, chords, scales, soloing, etc., but don’t neglect other skills that are not guitar specific like, ear training (also called aural skills), songwriting, improvising, creativity, reading, music theory, etc.
Here is a simpler scenario for beginning players. Perhaps you suffer from the common complaint of not being able to change chords smoothly so you can sing that old favorite of yours without feeling like a new driver learning to drive a stick shift (go, stall, go, stall, etc.)
Turn your musical frustrations into an asset in the form of a motivating force. I wrote a whole article called Musical Frustration. I don’t want to repeat here everything that I wrote in that article, so read it if you haven’t already. If you have read it, it may be worth your time to read it again now.
The sculptor visualizes what he/she wants to create. The act of carving away at the raw material is a form of “destructive creation”. In the beginning there is only a block of marble, stone or wood. The sculptor must remove all the material that is not needed so that only the finished sculpture remains!
Define exactly why your purpose exists in your mind. I specifically choose to list this separately from defining your purpose because I did not want you to let the WHY get lost in the act of DEFINING. Trust me, this is important.
Now, the challenge will be to be able to use the practice approaches that can actually change something like that. Users of “The Principles” know that this means Posing, and No Tempo practice, and the use of The Basic Practice Approach. Again, unfortunately, too often I meet readers of my book who are not really using these practice approaches. They bought the tool, but they don’t use it! Those that do, see the results.
Music just happens to be your medium and guitar just happens to be your instrument, but YOU are the artist. From this day forward when someone asks you what you do or who you are, don’t reply by saying you are a guitarist or musician.