How Do I Stop Reverting To My Default Strum Pattern?

It happens to us all as we're building a repertoire of strum patterns.
Your strumming's fine when you're paying attention to it. But then you start singing, and realize that you've slid back into that old, comfortable pattern you use in your other songs.
In this Member's Q&A, I teach this process of breaking out of a strumming rut:
1. Learn to play your new pattern well with no distractions (i.e. you're not singing or making chord changes if these things take your mind off the rhythm).
2. Slowly introduce distractions, appropriate to your skill level. These might be
- Making chord changes
- Playing with the recording
- Singing
You know you've chosen the right amount of distraction when you're able to stick to your new pattern, but it takes some effort.
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[@debraraden7356]

I love that you clearly state that it can take a very long time to learn particular guitar skills. I get very frustrated with the You can learn guitar in 15 minutes a day crap. All that leads to is people feeling incompetent.

[@HeartwoodGuitarInstruction]

:) Yeah, that stuff bugs me too. A mix of marketing hype, and also a tendency for teachers with a lot of natural aptitude to assume everyone's going to pick it up like they did. In the words of Stephen Brookfield, "The best learners... often make the worst teachers. They are, in a very real sense, perceptually challenged. They cannot imagine what it must be like to struggle to learn something that comes so naturally to them."

[@That.Guy.]

My first strum was the “old faithful strum” ddudud or
1-2-&-&-4-& to the tune if “used to love her but had to kill her” by Guns & Roses. I didnt realize the song had a little swing in it until i tried using it for other songs and everything sounded wrong because it sounded just like like that original songs but with different chords lol
Took a little mental focus to even it out to a standard beat spacing but it eventually got better.

[@HeartwoodGuitarInstruction]

Oh that's funny. Yeah, same thing happened to my student. Once you swing, it's hard to un-swing!