If you follow us on social media, you’ve probably seen that I make a lot of instructional videos. Sometimes, there are lines I’m painting that are very difficult. One line needs to be right next to another line; it needs to stay next to it through curves and direction changes.

A lot of the time, when I’m about to paint these lines, I’ll get in my head about it, thinking, “I hope I nail this,” and worrying about it not landing the way I want. Every time my mind goes there, I mess up the line. Ninety-nine percent of the time, if I get out of that thought pattern and just believe I’ll nail it, it works. There’s always a small percentage of times when you mess it up anyway.

I thought about this yesterday when I picked up the bass guitar again for the first time in quite a while and tried to play a difficult song. I was in my head about it; nailing the notes, remembering all the parts.

What I found was that if I stopped thinking, trusted that I remembered everything, and let my muscle memory kick in, it was far easier.

Many years ago, we were playing a show and I was in my head about messing up. I was worried about what the crowd and the rest of the band would think. It got so bad that I completely forgot how to play the song right there on stage. I couldn’t get my fingers to play it. I totally choked on a song I had played hundreds of times in private practice and in front of crowds.

We get in our heads about messing up, worrying about this and that going wrong. Clearing your mind and just doing it allows the skills you’ve practiced to take over.

As soon as you put too much attention on the fear of messing up, you can interfere with the very thing you’re trying to do.

— Bus