Learn this “trick” and banish anxiety for guitar practice wins! Full lesson here.
Fixed
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This is a very important piece of advice. The way we handle our mistakes is one of the major factors that distinguishes beginners from advanced players.
Because no matter how good we are, we’re always going to be making mistakes. Professionals make them too, but they make them with confidence. They don’t stop. They don’t apologize. They continue as if nothing happened and frankly, more often than not, the audience will not have noticed the mistake in the first place. Confidence really is the key word.
As Justin said, don’t worry about mistakes that you could be making. Focus on what you’re playing ‘in the moment’, don’t let fear take away your focus. The last thing you want to do is make mistakes in what you CAN play without any problems, just because you’re getting nervous.
This is by no means an excuse to ignore any technical issues, like ineffective string muting, fret buzzing etc. You should definitely keep working on that, but if it happens - let it happen.
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In my language I would say this “touches my uncovered nerves”, I can’t find the english expression for this, the meaning is that I can deeply relate to quite a few things you mentioned. The main thing is being able to be in the moment, being in the music and not on the edge of it, I often feel like I’m a step behind (often, not always 
).
Painting a good picture is also something that has been taking quite a lot of effort, but along the way I’m learning to be more positive and less hard to myself. Recording has been my lifeline and this wonderful Community really helps a lot as well 
Thank you for your 360 degrees approach to learning, it is very helpful… and thank you for the books’ recommendation, I’m going to read both. Cheers
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In English we use “touches a nerve” in the same way.
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Just a quick note to let you all know that I deliberately made a very specific mistake for a few days and guess what?! It disappeared!! Just as Justin predicted! Which in practical terms means it’s not occuring anymore 
yay! Now I waited a few weeks before writing this so just to be sure of it!
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What does it mean when we have to deliberately make the mistake? What would that look like? Because when i try and make the mistake i actually make the mistake, but justin said you should most likely get it right. Someone please explain.
Another technique is CBT Cognitive Behvioural Therapy - do the thing you fear ie perform until you get comfortable with it. I knew my first Open Mic would be a challenge. I have now done 4 and it is getting easier. And I learned 2 songs by playing them hundreds if times!
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I found this lesson very interesting. It’s also very well timed for me personally, so I just wanted to share my recent experience that closely relates to some of the things you mentioned.
I just recently bought a looper pedal. It was just a few days ago, and I used it for the first time for your course on “chords in keys”. I wanted to use my looper pedal as a jam along buddy, so I could play scales over chord progressions. The first time I used it I got really anxious. I thought that was very strange because I am the only person in the room, and it’s not like I had anyone watching me. However, for the first few times I turned it on I would make a stupid mistake, and I would have to keep redoing it. I’m talking about simple chord progressions that I can easily play normally. The only thing I could think of was that it had to be a mental thing. I tried to analyse what was going on and I came to the conclusion that my fretting hand was tense and I was gripping the neck too tightly. It was something new I was doing for the first time, and for some strange reason I was anxious because of that fact. To cure the problem I tried to zone out a bit, and play in a more relaxed way treating it more like a meditation session, like you have mentioned prviously. I was fine after that, and now I don’t have any issues at all. I’m not really sure if the zoning out method had any effect really, or if it was just an initial anxiety of using something for the first time that wore off once I’d tried it a few times.
It makes me think of stage fright though. That must be a really scary thing. I imagine rock stars who suddenly make it, and they are thrust into the limelight. From one day playing in small clubs with a regular set of fans that they recognise every night, to suddenly having a hit record and landing themselves on a massive stadium tour. Some of them would never be able to cope with that. I guess that is why some of them don’t make it in the end, and either quit the business or worse.