Hey gang! I’ve been thinking about why some people are happy with their progress, and some aren’t… besides that those who aren’t should have bought Beginner to Badass. 
What do you think is the #1 thing that’s kept you from improving on your bass journey?
(I’ll save my answer for later to not bias you)
At this moment:
These are my issues and the ones I’ve battled the most with.
Just (re)started and only on module 4 so pretty much everything 
So far I am not disappointed in my progress. I do find that I lack patience (in lots of things, not just bass); I want to cram and learn as much as I can as quickly as possible. So I’d say patience if I was forced to give an answer.
My main issue is:
“BONUS” issues:
Aside from just not setting aside enough time for practice (thinking about problems but not putting the time in actually playing) - I’d say lack of focus.
As in, I can just play more random songs and slowly improve, but my technique doesn’t really get better unless I’m practicing specific things intentionally.
Real life distractions, lack of practice, the dog ate my bass
Social pressure.
I would imagine a large portion of us have ADHD tendencies, we get all excited when we start, just like Chris Farley from the movie Tommy Boy.
But when it comes to putting in the work to advance to the next level we fall short or get too busy.
Being in a band has been what has kept me going. I know if I don’t learn the songs I’m letting down my team. Or worse yet, I look like an idiot on stage.
I wouldn’t still be playing this much without accidentally falling into a band.
My band mates quickly turned into friendships, we’ve been through things together.
Josh, you are amazing and my best music teacher so far but the social pressure keeps me from chasing squirrels.
I also imagine this is why music stores are running classes that build bands. The social cohesion and experience brings results and happy customers.
Also we are all bass heads that want to learn things like Muse’s Hysteria on day 1. By ourselves this turns into an exercise of despair and exhaustion. The songs we love are too hard!
Having your list of songs or joining a cover band gets us into approachable music. Learning entire songs and actually using them is amazing practice.
Time - First and foremost and as of late, I just can’t practice every day like I was able to.
Direction - When I do get to practice, I tend to stick to the things I’ve been practicing and don’t really know where to go from where I am.
Shiny object syndrome - I’m learning a song. I hear a song on my playlist and realize “oh, crap! That’s an awesome bassline” then I quickly pull it up on SongsterrrrRrRRRRRrrr when I get home and start learning it. Then I remember I was learning that other song and put the current one on hold. Then remember that other song I was learning was interrupting another song I was learning even longer ago. Essentially, I’ve learned the first 4 bars of about 70 songs and keep forgetting which one I was supposed to be dedicating my time to. Having AuDHD sucks. It sucks hard.
Not necessarily true of everyone.
We each come to playing music with varying degrees of goals, genres and experience.
You mean other than being totally lacking in any musical talent at all?
If so then I would say it’s due to a failure to learn the basics first before plunging ahead full bore into learning their favorite songs. Learning to play in an era where there were no online learning courses and few if any teachers around from whom to take lessons like many others I am self taught. Six months after picking up the instrument the first time I’m the bassist and lead vocalist in a rock band.
That’s how I learned to play but by not having learned some fundamentals first my musicianship lagged and eventually progress became more difficult until I took the time to finally focus on those alone many years after I began playing. From that point on I finally advanced well enough as both a bassist and a guitarist to finally define myself as a “player”. A musician who actually understands what he’s playing and why. Now it’s the only way I will teach another person how to play their instrument. Basics first.
Hope that answers your question Josh.
Hmm, I think consistency and patience.
Consistency as in, sometimes I can absolutely nail the groove for a lesson and I feel like a god 
(I have yet to make it through module 4, so these things are relative ).
Patience as in, for some totally illogical reason I seem to expect myself to pick this new skill up like something from The Matrix. And when I (obviously) don’t, I get frustrated which then hinders the rest of my play.
Oh and I suppose for a bonus “extra”, there’s always my lack of left/right hand coordination and speed …
I’m hoping/expecting these things to gradually go away with time & practice, but sometimes it feels like “one step forwards, two steps back” (see “Patience” above 
).
Phil
This^^^
Knowing how songs are constructed, and why, makes progressing as a player much faster.
That said, learning how and why songs are constructed isn’t necessarily fun, which is why many don’t make the effort to learn about chord tones, sight reading, scale patterns on one/two/three strings, up and down the neck, etc.
It’s a lot to take in, for sure, but doing so really pays off.
Well yes. Nothing with humans is absolute 
For some, it is 
lack of theory, 100% sure in my case.
Sometimes 
Learning how songs are constructed is part of the fundamentals since it incorporates theory, time signatures, composing harmony (ie chord tones) scales, etc which can be taught and learned sans a song itself first. Then the songs become examples of what theory has taught.
I’m not ignoring whole songs or parts of them but rather using them as examples of how basic fundamental musical knowledge can be used as a platform to improve. My goal for every student is that they eventually become more self taught. It easier for them to do that once they under why they’re playing what they are not just memorizing the notes and/or patterns of a bass line as I once had to do.
We all have our own individual bass journey, my goal will be different to the next person, and the next person. As a consequence, our frustration and our impediments to improvement are likely to be different.
For me, the goal was / is to play in a band. I wanted to get proficient enough to do that, to hold my own and not feel like a complete imposter. The journey towards this has been underpinned, first by B2B, then secondly, by the 2 per week cover schedule I have set myself. Learn to play shedloads of songs and build confidence… relatively simple songs, I can now quickly master in an hour or two, slightly harder ones take a day or two. By doing this, I have got high degree of comfort with the songs on our set list, and I’m not phased when we discuss new stuff, providing it’s not too complex.
However, the schedule I’ve set myself does have its limitations. While I know many of the notes at the usual end of the fretboard, I don’t focus on theory, scales or practicing the basics. Equally, if a song is too complicated, I’ll move on. Regarding the first point, I’m not overly phased by this, I (currently) don’t have an objective to get better in the theory space. But the second, does make me think. I would like to approach more complex material, but enjoy the dopamine hit from getting a new song down and recorded … quickly. There’s a conflict there. I know the answer, clearly I do, but … I need that hit!
For me it’s easy to identify - I kind of hit my goal for bass and lack motivation to get better at it, instead focusing on other stuff. I am 100% sure of this - putting the same time and effort in to bass as I did during B2B and afterwards would lead to improvement (probably rapid). Instead I got up to an intermediate level where I felt I needed to minimally be and haven’t applied the same focus, moving to work on other aspects of music and sound.
I love bass and enjoy it a lot, at some point I need to go back and focus it some more