Swedish national soccer coach said once, we don´t want to practice stuff we´re bad at, we only spend our time practicing stuff we´re good at and I can agree to some point, not the whole way but pretty far.

Of course listening to other music is important but don´t force your self to listen to different stuff just if you don´t like it just because it´s diferent ´cause you won´t get a sh*it out of that. I think the best and I mean THE BEST way of learning is when it comes naturally (spelling?), somthing you can learn whtout endless practice (but you´ll have to practice to develop it and take it to another level), for ex, I never had problem with stuff like 16-note triplets, chromatic stuff and string skipping but I still practice it hard so that people can say, you know that guy Dejan, he´s the master of triplet run (just kiddin´) but you got the idea.

BUT, what didn´t came that naturally to me is sweeping (still strugling with but I have took it to anoher level for me, from basic sweeps to more like Becker sweeps stuff) and picking arps across strings a la Crossroads stuff. That´s death for me but I practice it but I know that I probably wont be that good at it but if I mix it with some fast string skippings and triplet run via chromatic speed stuff, nowone will say, this guys sucks ´cause he can´t pick arps that good. As far I can shred chromatic scales at 250 bpm, I know that shreders will give me at least some respect but I don´t give a damn if some old man (personal experience) who played blues and folk music whole his life comes and listen to me at the music shop and than later say that I´m killin´ the fine art of guitar playn´ and that playn´ fast dosen´t belong into guitar music, well that´s another thing.