This is sort of embarrassing to admit, but I have discovered over the past couple years that my self esteem and guitar playing are pretty closely tied together. When I’m not having a good day of playing it bleeds into everything else and I feel down about myself. As of late even when I am playing ok I still feel like I am not making progress anymore or at least it is very slow. I find myself obsessing over my picking and my speed. Very silly I know. I suppose I just really want to be able to play the stuff I want to play how I want to play it. I should not let this get me down as much as I do especially because guitar playing is a process that can only be rushed to a certain degree. It just takes time. Yet I still do. Does anyone else get down on themselves or really frustrated with playing and practicing? To the point it impacts your self esteem or ruins your day?
I’m clearly no psychologist, but definitely, guitar can sometimes feel like being in a 12-step program. You’ve got good days and bad days. But that’s where it has to stop. If it ever becomes more than that, to where it is simply a proxy for your overall happiness, it’s not guitar any more, and it’s not healthy. And if that ever happens I strongly suggest seeing a professional therapist. No judgement from me. At all!
I happen to be a clinical psychologist, but by far the best perspective I’ve gotten about what @RG707 describes came from a former classical guitar teacher of mine, a very kind person who was one of Segovia’s students in the 60’s and later became a music professor. During one lesson, I was saying some things that remind me of @RG707’s experience. And then my teacher asked me to put the guitar down for a moment. He then said that as wonderful and enriching and life-enhancing the guitar is, it could never, ever offer the thing that I was asking of it. Those words had a huge impact on me, and I aways try to remember them (not always easy to do!) whenever I notice moving in the direction of linking self-esteem (or any of the other “self” experiences) with something external.
Thank you for your reply. I need to realize sometimes that two or three years ago I could only dream of being where I am with it now and that two or three years from now I will likely feel the same. It isn’t worth getting so frustrated over. Especially because it is a process.
Thanks for the reply. Those are wise words. I put too much pressure on myself to be the vision I have of the future right in this moment, rather than allowing myself to become that over time. Which is the only way to do it. I should not allow something that should only be life enriching to be taking anything away. It won’t always be fun to practice or feel stuck, but I know that it should never be something that affects me once I put the guitar down. I must work on this and appreciate how far I have come more than I do.
Totally agree with the others about guitar skills not being the most important thing.
In addition, I’ve realised a while ago it’s unwise to measure yourself against ideal goals or against guitar heroes because that just leads to disappointment. Instead, I measure myself against myself.
I have a set of electronic notes of each exercise I do (including all of the CTC seminars I’ve bought) and I write down the tempo I can play it at cleanly. Then I practice it and move to the next exercise. Some time later (often weeks or months) I come back and measure myself against the metronome and then compare with my previous note. Probably 80% of the time I’m better than I was before and that really helps make me feel I’m getting somewhere. The ones I haven’t improved on I work on more.
The incidental benefit has been that for some exercises I’ve gotten as fast/clean as the original version without actively comparing myself with the original until I’m happy with how I’ve improved against myself.
No, it’s not silly at all. It’s very real and to be this way is both a blessing and a curse. It will drive you to become better on the guitar than you otherwise would have, but there is a price to be paid. I used to insist on never stopping a practice session until I figured out why I was making a mistake on something I was working on. If it meant being 2 hours late to work, it didn’t matter. I went through several jobs at that point in my life. If I had gone to work I wouldn’t have been able to concentrate on my job anyway. In a few situations where I was forced to stop playing, I would be absolutely consumed with a desire to get back to it and perfect what I had been working on.
I also used to practice until I’d become injured and then would have take a week or ten days off. But at the time, continuing until I figured out why I hadn’t been able to play something I should have been able to play took precedence over everything else.
As far as I know the only cure is becoming good enough that these “bad days” rarely happen. Once you’re at least fairly happy with your playing things should become less frustrating but it never entirely goes away. If you’re as competitive about your playing and your level of playing as I’m thinking, be glad that this will drive you to surpass your peers and become a better guitar player than they ever would have dreamed you’d become. Of course the downside is there’s no rock music business anymore since almost all the major record labels have gone out of business thanks to illegal downloading and MP3s which allow people to buy a “single” for $1.29 which is roughly what a 45 rpm single cost 30 or more years ago.
That may work for you but it doesn’t work for everyone. Eddie Van Halen said “Set your goals twice as high as anyone else. Then even if you fall short of your goals you’ll still be way ahead of anyone else.”
Not to offense EVH here, but that will IMHO just lead to “falling shorter” 
Always start out by playing something you can play well every time you pick up the guitar.
Not silly at all. Kind of the expected result from the craving you describe. These days I never really feel down on my playing. I attribute this to a few main things.
First of all, I focus on musical concepts. I find my guitar chops catch up with whatever I have firmly in mind musically. My work serves the music as opposed to the music enslaving me.
Second of all, ear training, ear training, ear training. I’ve been playing for fourty of my almost fifty years. Nothing is more rewarding for me than deciphering lines, away from my instrument, unlocking what’s happening interval and note wise.
Lastly, I work on singing, not for performance, but towards reinforcing ear training, in a relaxed manner. (My performance voice improves, but only as a side effect of relaxed vocal practice.) For example, if I know what a lydian dominant scale is intellectually, am I able to sing it without hesitation? By the time I get back to the instrument, it’s pure joy as my ear guides what I play.
Peace to you @RG707. Hang in there. By the number of positive responses, you can rest assure that this is not an uncommon phenomenon. Kind regards, Daniel
The best advice in this thread is from @Montreal543 and @Troy. If your emotional well-being is dependent on what happens in your guitar practice, there’s a problem. If that problem is severe enough to cause trouble in your life beyond the practice room, consider talking to a mental health professional.
Somehow both of my recent posts refer to talking to a trained professional as a pre-requisite, but here goes. 
If we play throughout our lifetimes, our brains are wired to interact with our instruments. The advice to step away and re-evaluate sounds good to me, but only if one recognizes that radical separation from one’s practice may induce depression.
Adding to what I said previously, at the crux of my approach, diversification of musical activity effectively acts to “throw a wrench” in the obsessive guitar task thinking, while simultaneously keeping the learning process fresh, interesting, and relevant. Others will find different ways to break away, I’m sure. I try to stay happy about music as opposed to just, “not depressed.” If I’m down, I can be pretty sure that a break is in order.
Excellent topic. Peace.
I agree what what Troy and Montreal543 said.
I work as an animator so I’m always listening to what great animators say. One thing I feel might be relevant here might be a quote from Brad Bird (director Iron Giant, The Incredibles etc).
“Animation is the illusion of life - and you can’t create an illusion of life if you don’t have one!”.
Which I understand to mean - it’s OK to be obsessed with your craft - but not to the point where it’s all you do and the core of your life. There are so many guitar players who can play fast but actually ‘say’ very little with their music apart from ‘hey look how many hours I practiced’.
If you rely on technical ability to be your measuring stick for how you feel about your entire person/life then you are destined to be unhappy. Just go on YouTube and search ‘amazing child guitar player’ for example and you should be instantly depressed But if you devote some of your time to actually working on yourself, your creativity and your outlook on life you’ll probably reap much bigger musical rewards than you will burning the metronome 24/7…
Oh, and maybe watch this video, some great insight into Vais attitude to life here which might help inspire you.
Agree with Troy et al. In addition, that feeling being described is a common one when chasing your passion. step away from the guitar for a while and focus on connection with those around you when that happens. I’m so glad you posted this because many of us face frustration with trying to attain such a high level of proficiency. Hopefully others will see this post and realize they’re not alone in feeling that way. Completely agree wtih Troy that you should try and get help if you can’t get over it on your own. https://www.mentalhealth.gov/get-help/immediate-help Lots of love to you.
I’m very glad that guys like Yngwie Malmsteen, Eddie Van Halen and others who practiced relentlessly (Relentless is the title of Malmsteen’s autobiography) or even practiced obsessively to became the guitar legends they became didn’t “get help” to try to stop their relentless practicing to become great.
BTW, how old are you and how long have you been playing guitar?
Seriously, why would you say something like this in this thread?
Seriously? To add a positive perspective amidst the negativity. Being relentless does have its upside.
And to OP: Many of us have been there. I’d echo Horganovski’s comment: Go live your life, play guitar when you feel like it. It’s not the only good thing about you. I promise. It’s a super easy trap to fall into, though. I’ve been there. Feel free to PM me here if you’re having a shit day. Can’t promise I’ll respond super quickly, but I’ll try.
If I am playing sloppy and feel frustrated, I just stop. I feel like the more I play when I am in that bad zone, the more I’ll hate guitar.