Goals and Priorities and Focus

Ever have so many things to do that the enormity of things weighed on you and prevented you from doing them?

Prioritizing, I can do. Goal-setting, I'm good at. But usually, as you're heading through those priorities and goals, they shift. It's like walking on sand. (I just went to the beach ^^) Really, though, it is. Pick a direction and take a step, and you slide. You put in X about of effort and get X-2 reward.

I had a set of goals for January through May. Now it's April, and how did I do?

Goal 1: 1 gig per month. Met, and exceeded, actually. I know it seems silly that I wrote specifically just one gig, but you have to put numbers on these things so that you can tangibly measure how you did.

Goal 2: Develop songwriting community through FAWM and Castle Open Mic. Met, mostly, as far as I can tell, tho we haven't had as many open mics as I thought. (The Castle Open Mic is a small group of friends which meets solely for the purpose of playing music or otherwise performing for each other. Originally it was a true open mic, but this is what it is now.) We actually had outstanding success with FAWM. 12 performers at the Newark Arts Alliance = win.

Goal 3: Complete FAWM. Met. Got a ton of new song material and I like a lot of it.

Goal 4: Maintain 3-5 students. Met, definitely - which is really more of a prayer answered than a goal met - the only sure advertising that seems to work for me is word of mouth, and that's honestly how I prefer it.

Goal 5: Practice 1 hour/day. Failed (miserably).

Goal 6: Participate in Schola Cantorum (UD Community Choir). Failed, mostly because I felt intensely that I would be too busy to actually receive nourishment from participating (if that makes sense).

Goal 7: Run Easter Choir at the Barn (church). Failed. There was some interest, but not enough to where I felt comfortable preparing them for a performance at Easter. Aside from this, I have realized that my work with the parks gets intense in the springtime, and it might be prudent of me to accept my limits and say that Christmas is the only time I can feasibly run a choir. I would be happy to mentor or accept folks as co-leaders of a choir, but if it's just me - I can't do much more than that.

So... okay. I guess I didn't suck as badly as I thought I did. Even the goals I "failed," I learned something about limits. Plus, I think I'm adopting the "shoot for the moon" mentality ("Shoot for the moon; even if you miss, you'll land among the stars") - planning too much and dropping some stuff instead of not planning enough.

But failing to practice at least 7 hours a week is disgraceful. I really am ashamed of that. Honestly - in college, it was 2-3 hours a day. I know it's incredibly bad form to admit it publicly, buuuuut... I think I need to say it. I think, actually, more of what I need is I need to communicate with my comrades-in-arms and get them to hold me accountable.

Also, I did some stuff that wasn't part of my goals. I've played 12 open mics so far this year. Not one of my top priorities. Not even a goal. An open mic doesn't count as a gig for me. It might count under "community building," though. But the intent is not to try to make stuff fit into the categories I've chosen - there should be a focus overarching everything I do. Should I have devoted time to performance experience, exposure, and community development when I really needed to just focus on practicing?

Well, possibly it was all right for then. Right now, though, I'm feeling a shift in focus. It's time to look at the next 3-4 months and set some new goals and priorities.

Now, how to make priority-setting a priority...