Yeah, I get this a lot. "Why am I doing this? I'm not getting anywhere. This is a waste of time ..." Four things I do ... Grab my guitar (I'm a bass player) and tinker with it. I am a lousy guitar player but it often will get me unstuck. If nothing else, being able to reach 6-7 frets at a time feels great. Play my fretless for an hour or so. It's different enough with having to focus so much on intonation that it can make a regular bass feel totally new again. Walk scales for a while. Cmaj, Dmaj, Fmaj, etc. On guitar I suppose this would be progressions, but being a bass player, I'm not entirely sure. Lastly, when I'm really sick of it all, I just play for a while. Pick out songs I'm at 95%+ on and play to enjoy playing. Sometimes I'll even get a little itty bitty bit closer to to FC. I've even hit it a couple of times. Go me! My rule, practice every day. Even if it's just pulling an instrument down and twiddling for half an hour on a song I'm trying to transcribe or get completely locked in my head. Once you get past the beginner stages, it's really difficult to see progress. But its there, and doing different things can often really help. Check out some of the master classes from Guitar Center that have been posted or study your favorite artist in concert. Even better, play with some different styles and techniques. Learn to read music, for example, if you don't already know how. Experiment with learning to create music. Do something different just to keep it fresh.