How to Fall Back in Love with the Guitar in 2025

If you want to return to the guitar and stick with it for good, then it can be useful to first recognise what caused you take some time away so that you can avoid the same pitfalls in future.

Often, life just gets too busy and it becomes something that it’s difficult to make time for when relaxing in front of the TV is a much more appealing prospect than learning pentatonic shapes after a long day at work. If that is the case then it will likely help to re-approach the instrument as something fun, relaxing, and low pressure - more on that later.

If experiencing tendon pains, repetitive strain injury, or back problems left you discouraged then you can take some time to educate yourself about how best to avoid injury in future and return to the guitar with confidence once you are feeling better. You might have simply found that you weren’t enjoying playing anymore, or getting frustrated and discouraged with a lack of progress - something that can happen to even the most dedicated players.

“Sometimes you want to give up the guitar... you'll hate the guitar. But if you stick with it, you're gonna be rewarded.”

Jimi Hendrix - Guitar Player Magazine Dec 1968

As the above quote shows, even Hendrix himself hated his guitar sometimes. It is important to recognise that your relationship with your instrument has the same ebbs and flows of any long term experience and it won’t always be a perfect. As you come back to your guitar this year, take some time to reflect on why you put it down, and that should shed some light on what you can change this time round.

An excellent place to start in this new phase of your guitar journey is simply by reminding yourself what drew you to the guitar when you first picked it up. Whilst our musical influences may always grow and evolve, many of us have that one guitarist or band that first ignited the passion for six strings and a pair of humbuckers (or whatever your preferred set up is).

For me, it was first hearing Jimmy Page’s solo on Since I’ve Been Loving You. I think it was the first time I had payed any real attention to a guitarist not only playing fast, in the iconic opening lick of the solo, but also playing with a depth of feel I longed to achieve. Even now when my practice time becomes too entrenched with the tedium of trying to correct the angle of my plectrum, or why I just can’t seem to get that one legato phrase sounding smooth enough, I can always return back to the joy of playing Since I’ve Been Loving You and remember what it is I really love about the instrument.

You may benefit from trying a similar approach. Don’t start with scales and arpeggios on day one. Start with a song lesson - the song that you’ve always wanted to play. Perhaps even before you pick the guitar back up at all, taking the time to listen to the records that first inspired you, or watching concert footage of your original guitar hero can help to bring you back to that headspace that lead you to the guitar in the first place. Get excited about music again and in turn you will get excited about playing the guitar.

The advice I would like to give you here really hinges on what kind of role guitar plays in your life and what stopped you playing in the first place. Above, I mentioned the kind of discouraged player who finds they don’t have the energy and motivation to sit and work on learning the guitar after a hard work day. If guitar playing became another afterwork chore you were reluctant to face then I would suggest one of two approaches.

Approach one: throw out the idea of following a plan entirely, at least for now. Now this may be in total contradiction to everything you’ve been told about making progress with the guitar but I would go as far as to encourage you to throw out the idea of making progress all together for the time being.

If sitting down and playing began to feel like another task on a to do list that you felt guilty for avoiding yet simultaneously didn’t have the energy or motivation to do, then it is important to reframe time spent with the guitar as another way to unwind and escape. Forget about working on technique and theory for a while and the next time you need to relax, get comfortable, put on a Lick Library backing track and just improvise or play along without being self critical about the sounds you make. It’s all about spending time with the guitar joyfully.

Approach two: if you prefer a structured approach then try to create a plan that fits into your lifestyle more organically. Try playing around with when you typically schedule a practice session. If evenings are hard to be enthused about when they roll round then try setting an early alarm and putting your practice time at the start of your day. Much like an early morning gym session it can be difficult to get out of bed for, but when you do it will feel like a huge achievement and you’ll be able to go about your day knowing you’ve already become a better guitar player.

Or, if you’re still torn between wanting to practice and the urge to unwind with a TV show at the end of the day then try a well known approach among the shredder community and do both! Many players have had great success with combining metronome practice of technical licks and exercises with having an easy watching TV show on at the same time. It can help keep the wandering mind occupied whilst keeping the fingers moving and whilst this likely shouldn’t be the only kind of practice you do, it’s a great way to integrate playing without having to sacrifice the fun of a good binge watch.

Plans are an important part of progressing, but they shouldn’t become something restrictive, unpleasant, or impossible to follow. The plan that works is the one you can stick to - so tweak yours until it fits and remember that if your only goal is to enjoy time with the instrument then don’t feel that you have to adhere to a plan at all.

Now if you fall into the camp of discouraged players who have become too frustrated with a lack of progress to continue playing, then it is important to avoid the overwhelm of pursuing ‘good’ guitar playing and instead to set small, measurable, and achievable goals. For example, rather than setting the goal of mastering alternate picking (a fairly intimidating task by any players standards) instead choose one lick that suits your ability level at a reasonable BPM target, and start chipping away in small 2 or 3 BPM increments.

Suddenly you are no longer staring into a void of endless speed increases on endless numbers of possible licks and riffs, and instead you are dealing with increasing one lick by 3BPM in your own time. Each time you find yourself getting frustrated with the bigger picture of playing, keep your arms and legs inside the proverbial vehicle, and just focus on increasing that lick by another few BPM. Before you know it you may well have doubled your speed.

The same thing goes for concepts in theory or even songs you’d like to learn. Instead of deciding you want to learn every note on the fretboard by heart, decide to simply learn the notes on your low E string and just know that the rest of the strings will still be there waiting for you once you have completed that much less overwhelming task.

If the entirety of an intimidating solo is causing you sleepless nights then treat the first lick like it is the only lick in the entire song until you are ready to move on. In all likelihood, any goal that you set can be further deconstructed into smaller targets, so try to approach goals in their most accessible form and be sure to spend enough time playing things you are confident with already to remind yourself of how far you have already come.

When it becomes challenging to set realistic goals or create a plan for yourself, getting an outside perspective can be extremely productive. If you’re a Lick Library Unlimited member then you have access to 1-2-1 tuition slot sessions which you can book at no extra cost in order to discuss your goals with an instructor and work on a strategy that is going to be most beneficial to you.

There are so many different plans, courses, and opinions on making progress out there that it can be hard to know which one to listen to. In truth, no two guitar players are the same, and no two schedules are the same, so no one plan is going to work perfectly for every player. The opportunity to take a personalised look at your learning strategy with a guitar instructor is invaluable and I would highly encourage any Lick Library member to make full use of this feature.

If your social media feeds are always teeming with incredible guitar players then it is worth noting that this can also impact your experience with learning the guitar. The old adage that comparison is the thief of joy certainly holds truth and whilst social media can be an excellent source of information and inspiration, it’s important to remain in tune with how watching a constant stream of highly skilled players can make you feel.

A cultural attitude of ‘the flashier the better’ has arisen on many pockets of the internet and many other forms of brilliant guitar playing are often overlooked or undervalued. If you find that the sense of pride you have each time you manage to nail a new song is in any way dampened by opening Instagram only to be bombarded with eight videos in a row of world class technical shred then don’t hesitate to set the socials aside for a while and remind yourself that everyone is on a different journey with the instrument.

There is more than one way to be a great guitar player, so only engage with content that encourages you in your journey.

The very fact you’ve decided to pick the guitar up again means you are already on the right path so welcome back to the world of guitar playing! Whilst there’s a seemingly endless amount of advice and encouragement that can be given to the returning guitar player, the key points are these:

• It inspiration hasn’t found you in a while, go looking for it - you will always find it somewhere.
• Your journey is highly personal. There may be more or less effective ways of improving on the guitar, but there is no right or wrong way to make guitar playing a part of your life.
• Working on a challenging goal will never feel great 100% of the time, but the pay-off certainly will.
• Don’t forget to reflect back on your achievements when focussing on the goals that lie ahead.