Tip one is much cheaper 
Greetings,Rogier
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If you watch YT for inspiration and motivation , great. If it just creates frustration, stop watching. No one there got good in 2 weeks or by being a ānaturalā. It takes hard work every day. There is no way to get better than to practice a lot. There is no fast way. Everybody gets a bit down sometimes. As written above mix and match what you love learning/playing with some āgrindingā on things you want to be better at.
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Michal,
Some very wise advice aboveā¦ I agree with almost everything above - boxing could lead to serious hand injuries that could end your guitar playing! 
The one thing I would add is ābaby stepsāā¦ what I mean is set goals for yourself that are very close to your current ability. For example, you can play a D chord but not a Dsus2 or Dadd 4 - so thatās your next āgoalāā¦ then measure your success by conquering those small goals as Victories in your playing world. When I achieve a Victory, I feel that itās time for a reward! Maybe go out to dinner someplace nice, or open that bottle of good wine my wife & I have been saving orā¦ wait for itā¦
BUY ANOTHER GUITAR!!! (Well maybe that one is for a Big Victory!!!) 
Another thing is comparing yourself to others is very frustratingā¦ you see guitar players on YouTube who do this for a livingā¦ they are a lot better than the vast majority of guitar players will ever be & if you watch John Mayer playing a cool solo & youāre having trouble making your guitar sound like anything musicalā¦ itās a downer. Try to look at others as Inspiration - āI want to play that song SOMEDAY, but I know it wonāt be anytime soonā & as Joshua mentions above, learn a simple song or 2 or 3 that you can make sound musical.
When I first started to learn guitar ages ago, I had a Hal Leonard Easy Guitar songbook that included Brown Eyed Girl. I loved that song & wanted to play it in the worst way. But I didnāt sound anything like Van Morrison. So, I gave up. Fast forward a year or 2, I found my songbook in a bookshelf, got my guitar out, dusted it off & tuned it & tried again. I sounded, if anything, worse than before. So, I quit. Told my wife, Iām selling that damned guitar, it sounds like total crap. Now, my wife is a very wise womanā¦ instead of selling my first, beginner $50 Costco special guitar, she bought me a better guitar - a blue Ibanez acoustic (my favorite color) & had it on my guitar stand with my songbook in the entry hall of our home when I came home from work one day! Well, guess what? It didnāt sound any better that my 1st guitar but boy was I motivated to play - I learned Brown Eyed Giel but decided that I probably couldnāt play it like Van so I play it like Tod - fingerstyle, slow & more balled-like! It works in my styleā¦
So the moral to this anecdote is, find your voice with your guitar, donāt worry about how well youāre progressing, just progress!
Enjoy the journey - the slower you go, the more you see!!
Tod
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Thank you all for so much supportive talking, I did not expect that much. It could sound bad, but I am happy its pretty normal to feel like this.
Well I am gonna jump into song learning becauseā¦ lets āput hand on heartā I am not doing it that much, because I dont like to āknowā 20 songs and play them somehow. I really like knowing few songs and play them good, but thats just about me.
About that fingerstyleā¦ thats my main goal and why I started to learn guitar, so before I finished my Grade 1 I had big jumpes around different teachers and I was able to do hammer ons and play songs like āAnouk - lostā before I did my final exam. Its like sometimes I just watch The Walking Dead while I am doing some fingerstyleā¦ even changing from Barre F to C chordā¦ I could do it 1 hour by TV and it feels good, but I dont see any move forward here, so I am gonna stick with some known fingerstyle and basic songs and I will see. Maybe I āoversleptā when Justin was saying to look for different strumming pattern. I am still using the same Old Faithful and I am playing it without thinkingā¦ and maybe this repetitivenes is killing me.
Anyone would recommend some nice strumming pattern? I can also do Wonderwall strumming with chord changes, but it does not feel nice, because I cant do backbeat hereā¦
If you got some favourite strumming pattern you can leave it here just in format āD DU UDUā.
Thanks a lot all, gonna heart and read all your comments. This makes me feel better how great this community is. 
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Perhaps.
You donāt expect proper grammar from a boxer, do you? 
Rut Buster #1 = Money Can Buy Happiness!
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Hi there,
I am going through the same thing so I can relate. I feel like I make zero progress sometimes and not much better than I was a year ago. The best advice to this situation is give yourself a break and tone down your goals to smaller simple things. I decided I am dedicating all of 2024 to improve strumming and rhythm instead of repeating failures in things like soloing and lead guitar. If I donāt sound good in basic rhythm no one will wait to hear the solo part.
Lately I have tried to go back and revisit songs I have done the past couple years and make the rhythm more interesting or different. Yet I do crave learning something different so maybe try new songs not too complex as well. Iāve posted plenty songs here in the forum and people give advice sometimes. I just need to listen and do the work to improve. Remember you are an artist playing music and we want to hear your personal style eventually. This is something to be proud of. Iāll still be posting more songs here eventually and hopefully will hear more feedback.
I am sure you have achieved a lot already. Play the mini F if the full f is too hard. I promise you no one will care which one they hear. Do what you can.
Jeff from California
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Daaaaamn!
I wonder if there is anything that Justin does not have covered, this is really really great videoā¦ did not know it has even it own terminology.
About that guitar buyingā¦ I had mood for this month ago or something like that and that did not go that well. I am gonna give you link to that topic, so you can see it. But I pretty like Furch guitars. I am from Czech Republic so its local dealer, but they are pretty expensive. Also really expensive for someone changing few chords.
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I may be deviating from the way Justin is teaching it with my next few thoughts!
I have never been a fan of sticking with a pattern. I think it is better to listen to the rhythm in the song and then create something that fits and accompanies it. We have some reasonably useful goals, like strum down on the 1,2,3,4 and up on the āANDsā. This generally fits most things, but may get in the way for a few cases. Feel free to change to what feels like the music you are accompanying.
What are the drums or bass doing in the song? Do they have a pause or emphasize portions of the beat? Can you do the same in the strumming? Can you augment what they are doing with a strum emphasis or direction (up and down sound different)? Can you maybe fill in somewhere the rhythm is silent and create something interesting to hear?
I think that experimenting in a song you like to fill in some strumming could be both fun (which you need) and build some ideas to get out of just playing old faithful. Justin has said this over and over in his videos, but I really feel it when I just try to play along with a song - not try to play like the song. Just trying to play something interesting to hear. Yes, you sill have some really horrible stuff, but that is good learning so you know it sounded bad and you can see how to alter it so improve it.
I think of this as a part of the noodling style of play, so donāt let this take over all your practice. Basic technique still needs to be practiced.
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Hi
This afternoon I was sitting in a store, bored and hoping that with this video in mind I could pick out a new guitarā¦ strangely enough my wife thought differentlyā¦ 
And never apologize for an expensive guitar vs your playing level, just buy the guitar that your savings bank can provide you ā¦ and if in doubt, a good second hand one will retain its value or even become more valuable, a new one that is not produced too much also by the way, I saw that with my guitar here on my avatar ā¦
But the chance that I will sell it is close to zero, so it doesnāt matter
Greetings
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Two more comments, because I am like thatā¦
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I also want to play fingerstyle and classical guitar. However, after working at that quite a bit, I realized that I needed to go back and learn strumming and strummed songs better. Not only do I need the rhythm basics strumming teaches in order to play fingerstyle (and classical too) I needed some less complicated successes to bolster my sense of achievement.
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Guitars are cheaper than carsā¦
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I am seconding this too. I had a fingerstyle phase with YT channels like SixString. But, in the end, it did lower my motivation because even the easy lead melody arrangements takes a lot of time to master at our level. It did not feel as fun as I thought given all the time that I had to invest. I had way more fun sticking with Justin Songs which are more about rhythm guitar (chords or fingerstyle) as itās closer to the skills that we learn in the course. Itās not like starting over something new, itās a continuity.
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To add againā¦
It also is easier to learn rhythm and timing with strumming and chord structures than it is to learn it while trying to learn fingerstyle, especially if it isnāt a simple, repetitive picking pattern.
Rhythm and timing is important. Possibly the most important.
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Thatās been it for me. After you get a few songs in your pocket, add some variety. Many use the āold faithfulā strum pattern D D u u D u. Introduce some new strumming patterns/rhythms or start some fingerstyle.
Justin has an excellent lesson on thumb and finger technique that gave me a great strum with a back beat that just suits certain songs.
I canāt remember where I heard this, but I think itās very wise:
āDonāt compare yourself to other players. Compare yourself to the player you were a year agoā
Also, learning guitar is not a linear processā¦it often proceeds in fits and starts, with long plateaus, and sudden jumps to the next level.
Iāve had many periods of frustration. But I have come to realize that this is often a prelude to a jump to the next level of playing. You kinda have to just tough it out.
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Hello Michael,
A lot of great info here already, as youād expect from this great community.
A couple of things, if I may.
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I think its a good idea to change it up for bit; take a break from the strict JG lesson format, as youāve intimated. It may be the circuit breaker you need. As others have said, find a few songs you like, and have a go at them, without any pressure.
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Eventually, I think its always a good idea to do a thorough and honest review of your weaknesses, and strengths, being very specific about both. That way, you can seek, find, experiment with practice routines that attack those weaknesses with laser like focus.
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Along the lines of @Jamolay input.
Iāve always seen learning, of any type, as a journey from initial knowledge to full competency. The knowledge part is at the lowest level. It is the fun part - novel, often exciting and stimulating, often full of wonder. The move towards competency is the hard part; bringing that knowledge together and expressing it creatively on the guitar. Itās often littered with frustration, temporary failures, trial and error etc. It has to be. But itās also filled with much joy, progress, fulfillment.
I thinks that itās consistently finding the joy in the second part of the journey that keeps you going.
All the best.
Cheers, Shane
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Just a little update:
I took a day so I can have a look on guitars and some stylesā¦ also I go keyboard Yamaha at home, but I am too lazy for that now.
I checked some Furch Little Jane and I really like it, but maybe some dayā¦ this is not the way for me.
I checked fingerstyle and thats good, but they all offer only intros and if you want play whole song it is really complex and hard. So this is not the way too.
I checked country style and I pretty like it with lot of hammer ons, but I checked few songs and they just dont touch my heart how I would like to. So this is not the way right now tooā¦
You know since primary school my main and favorite band is Simple Plan. The only band I have been on concert live 3 times. I am not doing this things, but this is really something. I know almost every lyrics from them, I got their vinyl, picks, hoodieā¦ well I checked YouTube for some tutorials and found āSimple Plan - perfect by DocOtepā and thats something I am working on now. Just mutted strings and learning pattern with JG Time Trainer - I am using this app few months and I was really sceptical before buy, but for few bucksā¦ this is really great and my little helper while I tap my foot. But back to that Simple Planā¦ I really like strumming and chord progression, only one bad here is Bm, but to me it looks like F chord only one line higher, so I got also something to work on also with my barrĆ©.
I am gonna share with you few pictures because I am feeling happy a interested now.
Thank you very much.
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Thereās also a Rut Buster module over on the website, you might find some good ideas in there too:
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I think youāve also got to bear in mind that the likes of the song lessons done by Six Strings is aimed at a playing level similar to his course structures. A bit like how Justin teaches you how to play some chords and strumming patterns and gives you some suggested songs.
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Yes, SixString fingerpicking course and song lessons definitely seems great. I might do this course or the one from Joe Robinson in 2 years when I have achieved my current JustinGuitar goals (blues and rock). I now focus on one course/genre at a time as Justin says in grade 3. 
Itās great to see that Careta is having fun with his Simple Plan songs. 
Itās a great band !
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