Now that you have a catalogue of activities, here’s the important question: why?
When you do all of these things that you do, what is it you are trying to ultimately achieve? Why do you do what you do?
So you’re working on an album? You’re writing songs? You’re mailing out CDs? You’re planning a tour? To what end?
Most people don’t have any idea of what it is they’re working towards. They generally have a pretty clear idea that they need to get from the rung of the ladder that they’re currently on to the next rung up, but very few stop to think about how tall that ladder is, and which wall it’s leaned against.
If your goal is pop superstardom, arena concerts, your face on lunchboxes and a TV chat show, then there are certain things that you should probably be doing that would be different if your goal was £40k per annum reliable passive income that would free you to just compose and perform music, collect single malt whiskies and buy a nice but modest second home in the south of France.
Your goal might not even be monetary or measurable in that way. It might be that what you’re trying to achieve is to share your music with as many like-minded individuals as you can. Or to make your own self-expressive art, and screw what the world thinks. It might even be as simple as constant improvement.
But if you don’t stop to figure out WHY you’re doing all these things you busy yourself with, you’ll probably eventually figure out that most of them were only helping you tread water.
Since you now have this list of things that you do, spend a few minutes brainstorming the big picture (that is, where are you trying to get to?) — and then jot down beside each activity your hoped-for outcome of each thing you’re doing. Does it help you get towards where you’re going? Is it even part of the plan or just a distraction?
I think if you do this simple exercise, you’ll come up with some more interesting insights in terms of the gap between what’s currently going on in your world, and what you see as an ideal state of affairs for your independent music business. Sometimes, when you get some clarity about what it is you’re trying to achieve, the ways in which you can make those things happen start to become obvious.
So… let us know about any surprises, revelations or new ways of thinking about what you do in the comments. I’d love to hear what your version of ‘success’ looks like…
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Tagged: creativity, Productivity
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5 Comments
Regularly re-evaluating ‘WHY’ is a great way of keeping on track of and putting a value on the time and energy spent. The roots of the WHY might not even be something that is achievable or measurable. Also as time and successes happen the music, promotions, and marketplace can affect the value of the ‘WHY’.
On the other side of it, if the reason WHY is to “keep treading water”; use that as a measure on how much work is required and the weight of the rewards from that work as well.
All of this is related to managing the expectations of the work. Anything that helps manage the expectations and find true value of all this can only help in keeping the whole experience honest.
It’s well worth the effort of learning why…
Love the way you’re walking through this…I smell another e-book in the making :).
I’ve been making music for years and have always suffered from lack of focus…the very “what’s” and “how’s” that you’ve so far discussed.
Having these questions in front of me so plainly is very helpful. I’ve always wanted to marry my music with the moving image…be that film, tv or creative advertising. Most of my activity has been scatterbrain and not to that end…
Hmmmm. Thanks Dr. Webber
Not sure if this is a surprise, but all of my activities led toward my goal (of bulidng a profitable business while helping artists achieve same). Now, whether I’m doing those things*well enough* to achieve those goals is a whole different game ;-)
My goals are simple:
1. Keep getting better.
2. Get to the point where I’m earning a decent living strictly from music. I don’t care if some of it is teaching, some gigging, some recording sales, some t-shirts… you get the idea.
I’m pretty sure I’ve not gotten the discipline down so that I’m always making the progress I need but I’m getting better. And it’s following sites like yours that is doing the most to help.
Thanks!
HH
Good question! This is a question that I ask all of my clients before we start any public relations work for them within the industry.
What are you expecting to achieve?
This really does determine the strategy we put in place and, of course, there is the question of managing expectations. The answers I get back range from “I wanna be on Jools Holland” to “I’d like to earn enough to give up my day job and work on my music full-time”. Based on what I hear back, I try to help implement a realistic strategy with achievable timelines and flexibility for shifts in various directions.
Small, bite sized chunks of achievable recognition within the segmented long-tail of a particular genre is better than none at all. And it is to this end 8pr will continue to provide what services we can to unsigned artists.