It’s the same for all of us at one time or another. You feel like you’re making progress, then you plateau and feel like you’re playing the same old thing over and over.

It’s an all too familiar trap. It’s so tempting (once you get good at something), to stick with what you know and avoid challenging yourself.

I mean, who wants to pick up a guitar and feel like a beginner again when you could wail out some Hendrix licks or bust out some Clapton?

Personally, it took me a long time to break out of my pentatonic scale comfort zone. I could fly up and down those 5 patterns like a man possessed, but it took me a long time to go beyond that.

Truth be told, I was stuck within that bubble for way longer than I should have been.

But luckily, I found the answer…

I was just going about things the wrong way.

The reason I was only playing stuff in my comfort zone is because nobody showed me the right approach to going beyond it.

I’d try some natural minor scale stuff or modal shapes and I’d always feel like I’d taken a giant step back. I’d always struggled to make that stuff sound any good, so I’d always go back to the ‘old faithful’ pentatonic again.