Originally Posted by: maggior
- New gear!! A new axe can inspire you to play more and help carry you over a plateau. Disclaimer - use in small doses and don't fall under the spell of GAS, aka guitar acquisition syndrome, or gear acquisition syndrome. If you've been playing for a while and have a hankering for a new type of guitar, go to your local guitar shop and try some out. Perhaps you want one with with humbuckers rather than single coil, or vice versa; an acoustic to complement your electric, or vice versa. Maybe you bought a pracitce amp to start out and you are ready to move up to a "real amp". Try out tube amps.
- Try singing while you play.

I can definitely vouch for those two points. This winter, I had landed on one of those infamous plateaus, and lately my amp began to seem inadequate (it was only a beginner amp, mind you), so I went out and bought a new amp, and my motivation sky-rocketed immediately afterwards. Then, at the end of last month, I got some tax-money back and immediately spent a good share of it on a new guitar, since my beginner-strat had lots of problems it wouldn't be worth paying for getting fixed (100$ for even getting a technician to look at a 50$ strat isn't worth it in my opinion). So I bought a new guitar with my tax-money and I really have trouble putting it down now. Simply buying new gear, although not cheap, elevated my motivation to new levels.