Setting Music Goals for 2024
What would you like to achieve with your music in the coming year? Perhaps you’d like to spend more time songwriting or improving your skills on a specific instrument. Maybe you’d like to find more places to perform or people to perform with. Whatever your goals are, now is the perfect time to create a plan and put it into action.
The Importance of Reflection
American philosopher and psychologist John Dewey famously said, “We do not learn from experience, we learn from reflecting on experience”.
The new year always feels like a fresh start and a wonderful time for quiet reflection. Before setting up your new goals, take some time to look back at all that has transpired over the last 12 months. Celebrate the wins and learn from the mistakes, there are lessons to be learned from both. What can you improve upon this year? How can you do things differently? What will you change or keep?
Choosing a Goal
It’s very easy for us to focus our energy on what we don’t want. Now is the time to decide what you would like more of.
Everyone’s goals will be very different depending on their situation and what they’d like to achieve. Remember that this is all about you and there aren’t any right or wrong answers.
Here are some examples of music goals:
* Improve your songwriting skills
* Write and record new material
* Learn a new instrument
* Read more books on a specific subject
* Get better at posting to social media
* Find someone to collaborate with
* Get booked to play more shows
* Start a band
* Attend a local jam night
* Research events where you can network with industry people
Be Specific
Once you have decided on your goal (or goals), go into as much detail as possible. For example, your goal might be to learn a new instrument. A more specific version of this would be ‘I want to learn how to play the piano and I am going to practice every morning at 8am for 10 minutes’. Another example might be that you want to get more gigs, and a more specific version would be ‘I am going to spend 1 hour each night researching and contacting venues for my band to perform at’. Including details like this will make your goals much clearer in your mind and in turn, more achievable.
Write it Down
I find it helpful to have my goals written down somewhere, to remind myself of what I’m wanting to achieve. It’s very easy to get lost as the months go by and being able to see my goals in written form helps me stay focused.
Short and Long-Term Goals
Typically, I like to create weekly, monthly and yearly goals. My weekly and monthly goals tend to be smaller action steps that help me move towards my end of year goal. If you have a bigger picture in mind, start there and work backwards. How can you create smaller goals that step by step will lead you in the right direction?
Reviewing Your Progress
I like to have a weekly tracker in my journal or schedule that keeps me on course. Each time you take a step towards your goal (daily writing, meditation, sending an email etc) mark it off on a tracker. This can be as simple as creating boxes and ticking them off as you go. This method keeps me accountable and being able to see the time I have put into something is very satisfying.
You Got This
Goals are a way to us to make our dreams become a reality. Goals keep us focused and accountable. Don’t let perfection prevent you from starting. A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. The most important part of this process is taking that first step and staying consistent.
