How many YouTube thumbnails have you seen, with guitarists talking about how to get out of a rut? There’s a dead simple fix for getting out of one, and it comes down to two things - you’re sitting down and noodling every time you play guitar, or you’re playing the same things over and over again. I only say this, because I’ve been there myself and have had to snap out of it.

The first one is easy, you need to have a plan before you sit down to practice each day. Otherwise, it’ll be easy to go back and retread the things you already know, which isn’t making you a better player.

Repetition isn't the key to cementing guitar ideas. That couldn’t be further from the truth. One of my favorite insights about this came from David Wallimann where he compared guitar practice to video games, when talking about ‘saving your progress’.

David mentions that “every time we put in a quarter”, we don’t always have to go back to the first stage of the game, or if we do, we’ve already remembered what we need to do when we get there.

Applying it to music, once you learn something like a scale or chord, start putting it into action right away to save your progress - try different rhythms, add or take away notes, try to write the catchiest lick you can, understand the theory behind the scale and more.

Practicing things in this way will make you a much better player each time you pick up the guitar. And I can guarantee, rather than running the same old scale boxes up and down the neck, you’ll make more significant progress than you ever have before.