[devellis]

First, welcome. You'll find lots of kindred spirits here.

Everyone stinks when they first start. It seems hopeless. Hours of time may lead to little progress and backsliding is common. It's also common to think, "Who am I kidding? I'll never be any good at this!" Everybody goes through this. And what's more, as you get better, reaching the next level will often feel as impossible as reaching that first one. It comes with the territory. The folks who end up being players are those who take the long view and are willing to be persistent and patient. Every physical and psychological barrier you'll encounter is one that every player has also encountered.

My recommendation is to remember what you love about the guitar and to balance working the guitar with playing (that is, having fun with) the guitar. If this isn't a career and is primarily a source of personal satisfaction, make the journey enjoyable. Part of that is making progress but also refraining from doubt and self-criticism when progress is slow, nonexistent, or retrograde. All of that is typical.

What is also typical is that you'll reach a point at which you can enjoy the sounds you're making and start to realize that you're doing things that you couldn't do before and that, in their own way, are kind of amazing. Those little moments of joy will start to happen with some regularity. There will still be days when you're worthless on guitar, but the balance will shift dramatically in your favor. When you get discouraged or "stuck," try mixing things up a bit. Play some stuff that you wouldn't ordinarily play. Go back to some much simpler stuff and see if you can add something new to it to make it more interesting.

The whole trick is not getting discouraged. Assuming that your biological wiring is intact, if you stick with it, you will get better and better. Some days, you'll see improvement over the course of an hour or less. Other times, weeks may pass with no signs of anything but mounting frustration. Just recognize it all as normal and universal. It doesn't reflect your personal limitations; it reflects the nature of the task. Persist. It'll all come together. Once it does, you'll set higher goals and you'll again go through a process of those goals seeming unobtainable. But this time, you'll have the benefit of past experience, which will have shown you that working at it and keeping it enjoyable (which at times will fight each other) will eventually get you where you want to go.

Explaining this to you has certainly been helpful for me. I need to remind myself from time to time how this all works. I hope it's also been of some value to you.