What Do You Do About Feeling Discouraged?, There are those days... Options

[lilly763]

...when it feels like your pieces will never be good enough, your playing sounds terrible, you feel like you're not getting anywhere, practicing feels like a chore. How do you deal with this? Play other non-exam pieces for a bit, listen to music rather than practicing, study for Viva Voce (for diplomas), practice another instrument... what are your ideas?

[BadStrad]

Hi Lilly,
I have two ways with dealing with this. If I'm REALLY not in the mood, or struggling with something, I'll take some time away from it and play things I know I can play well, or at least more easily, and also some of the pieces from a year ago that I used to struggle with. I find the sense of achievement from feeling how much easier those pieces are (now) a motivator to keep going. Sometimes I'll even feel that I might spend a bit of time on the troublesome piece during that session, but it might be the next or the day after. What ever I'm practicing or playing I always make sure I finish a session with a piece I enjoy and can play comfortably, so that I have positive associations with playing after I put my violin back on its stand.

If I'm just feeling a bit "meh" and don't feel like playing I imagine that I'm a really good violinist, and must, therefore have the discipline to play no matter how badly I feel mood wise as people have paid for their tickets. I suppose that's a mind trick to help me create the self discipline to practice when I don't feel like it, but it seems to work.

Cheers.