Category Archives: Goal Setting

Wrapping up?

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Wrapping up?

The end of the year is rapidly approaching. You’re probably busy with social engagements, family time, practicing, decorating, work commitments, school holiday pageants, gift buy/wrap/giving (and maybe gift making?), and all the other stuff that makes up the end of year holiday swirl (miasma?).So, it is reasonable that you might not have gotten to a point where you can spend a few minutes sorting through the detritus of the last twelve months. I know it can be scary – at first blush you might think you haven’t gotten anywhere – I often feel like that about this time of year.

But there is plenty of irrefutable proof all around if you think to look for it. Let’s take stock, shall we? Here are some questions that bear consideration (they are multi-part questions):

What did you learn this year?

I know you learned something! First, what did you want to learn? Whether it was a new tune, to read better, to adapt music to your instrument, or whatever you wanted to learn – were you able to learn it? Were you able to learn more than one thing?

Now – what did you want to learn that you didn’t get to? Why was that? Are you disappointed or do you feel like you did well getting where you did? In addition, what did you learn (in everyday life) that you can apply to your playing, and what did you learn from playing that you can apply to your everyday life?

What did you practice this year?

First, what did you intend to practice? Did that align with what you wanted to learn? Did your practice serve you?

Second, were you able to meet your practice goal? Did you practice as much as you meant to? How did it work for you? How did it not? What could you have done differently? When should you have made changes? Practice isn’t a purgatorial punishment (really!). And you only have limited time, so it needs to be useful and efficient. Otherwise, you aren’t going to get anywhere.

What did you achieve this year?

First, what did you want to achieve? Was that realistic? How’d you do (maybe as a percentage, not just a yes/no)?

Second, how well stated was your achievement? Did you set yourself up for success or for failure? How could you frame it so that you could see (and assess) your progress throughout the year?

What did you overestimate this year?

First, it’s easy to make big sweeping goals but actually achieving them can be a bit of a bugaboo – it’s likely you overestimated something in your playing goals for the year. Were you able to correct along the way? Do you feel ok about your progress where you might have been too optimistic?

Second, how do you feel about the gap between where you are and where you thought you’d be? How does that make you feel about yourself? (BTW it should only help you understand about overestimating not undermine you!) Anything you underestimated? What is the difference between the things you over- and underestimated on (e.g., you overestimated reading but underestimated total number of tunes learned)?

What next?

Once you review yourself, you can ask yourself what’s left to do and how you might go about doing it. Remember that there’s nothing magic about mid-December – it’s an artificial boundary, but it is useful for taking stock of our progress and our direction.

No matter how you went about the process of practicing and playing throughout the year, you can reflect on it. But now it might be very clear why I’m always suggesting you write it down. Because if you had, now you could be looking at your notes throughout the year, your thoughts and feelings about not only the music you were playing but also about the music you would like to be able to play, the technical things still kicking your metaphorical butt, and the little joys that happen at your harp (but which recede from memory so quickly, and often before confronting the next challenge).

So, if you’re willing, please share how it went. I’m particularly curious about your gaps and the things that got in the way! And what questions we should add to this list. As always, I’d love to hear from you in the comments.

Word

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Word

Happy New Year and welcome to 2024! It’s the time of year that our thoughts turn to new endeavors, self-improvement drives, goal setting, and making plans for our days. Some people craft  rigorous goals. Some others make vague guesses. Meanwhile still others select a word of the year as a guide star. I’m (uncharacteristically) not going to bang on about goal setting (I’ve done that here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here) as a nod to those who are not “Team S.M.A.R.T. goals”. If you are, you’ve probably already set your goals. But if you’re not, you might be floundering.


Let’s focus on what you told me interests you. Thank you to all of you who completed the survey (if you missed it, go here – I’d still love to hear what the rest of you have to say). Your inputs definitely helped me see what we should be sharing here! Your thoughts seemed to fall into two broad categories – Personal Development and Playing Better.

Personal Development includes learning, memorizing, performing, and managing how you deal with each of those. Playing Better encompasses specific techniques, theory, theory in practice, and figuring out what to practice. We’ll talk about these things throughout the year and I’m looking forward to your thoughts, questions, and experiences!

Maybe we should take the Word of the Year approach. One thing all these topics have in common could be captured in a word. This would be a single word to help us quickly get back to what we think is important and bring our attention to what we think is essential. You could write it on your mirror, put it on the fridge (or, if you’re like me, IN the fridge!), or tape it to your steering wheel. Put it where you will see it so that you can remind yourself of what it means – to you, to your playing, and to your progress. 

I’m going to nominate Consistent as our Word of the Year. Because we know that consistent is what we need to be to get there (wherever we have decided there is). And being consistent will help us with both Playing Better and Personal Development. It is through being consistent that we can best find what you need to work on, what you want to work on, and applying your progress to your practice.

Consistent isn’t a sexy word. It brings ongoing hard work and it dribbles out small rewards. However, it will be in these little, activities with tiny feedback that will, given the chance, pull together over time to yield results you might be awed by! But you’ll never know unless you are consistent in your attention, practice, journaling, and analysis.

We’re going to have a great (if sometimes wild) ride – thanks for consistently reading and letting me know what you think!

 

I’ll be Bach

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I recently started reading daily posts from Arnold Schwarzenegger – known for his movie line,

“I’ll be Bach” 

What do you mean that’s not what he said?

I’m impressed with him because he demonstrates a single-minded focus on achieving things he thinks are important.  Now, whether you agree with him on his choices or not, it’s difficult to argue with his successes.  I admire that he works hard, doesn’t pretend that the work isn’t work, faces challenges head on, thinks before acting, owns his successes, moves onto other goals once he has achieved the current goals, and is relentlessly upbeat (sound familiar?)*.  I’m pretty sure that if he had an interest in playing an instrument, he’d be quite good at it – for all the same reasons.

But the one thread to which he frequently returns is the importance of consistency.  He champions the reality that, no matter what your focus (weightlifting, acting, authoring, playing an instrument) you have to put in not just hard work but consistent hard work.  He highlights that it is the small gains that accrue day after day that are behind success.  And that these daily small achievements build on each other to become what we often think of as “real success” – achieving big goals. 

He doesn’t discount that these small daily increments are sometimes challenging to detect. What does he suggest? Capturing them (dare I say, in some sort of journal?). Why didn’t I say that (except maybe here, here, here, and here)?!

Consistency doesn’t have to be huge, BTW.  Consistency is exactly what it sounds like – do small things with extreme regularity.  It means practicing every day.  Making some routine for your time at the harp so that you can complete the consistent behavior.  Acknowledging that you have been consistent (whether that’s giving yourself stars on a wall chart or giving yourself a cookie – well, that’s up to you!).  And don’t forget being grateful for the outcome of consistent small progress.

You can become consistent by making the commitment to yourself.  You can help yourself along with a calendar reminder, a schedule, a process, a cookie (if needed. I’m sure I’m not the only one that is big on external rewards!). Keep in mind that consistent is not the same as perfect.  If you mess up or get sidetracked, don’t beat yourself up, just get back on it – consistently.  You don’t need excuses, just get back to it.  If it helps, at the end of each practice session, tell your harp, “I’ll be Bach”.Could you benefit from increased consistency?  What do you do to keep consistent?  What might help you to be more consistent?  Let me know in the comments!

* if you want a daily dose of relentless optimism that’s nearly as relentless and almost as optimistic as this blog, you can get it from Arnold here in his latest thing of bringing positivity to the internet.  Not an affiliate, just a fan.

100 Days

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I’m not sure what it is about big round numbers, but they are kinda captivating.  Like this little bit of inspiration – there are about 100 days left in the year!  Woohoo!

Then the question is what should you do with them?  I mean – come on – just think of all the things you could do with that time!

You could convince yourself that the year’s nearly over so you might as well coast.

Or you could dig out your goals for the year, take their measure, and decide the year is wash and maybe next year you’ll start over.

Or you could dig out your goals for the year, take their measure, and decide that you crushed that and you can cruise until January.

Or you could see that opportunity of having all that time remaining to do more cool stuff.  For you. To make even more progress. How great is that?!

So what could you do in 100 days?  How about:

1 Commit to learning one new thing each day (doesn’t have to be music, but that’s probably a sure bet!).

2 Commit to practicing every day.  Actually practicing.  It doesn’t have to be a full blown, formal practice, it could just be for fun.

3 Commit to paying a compliment each day – to yourself.

4 Commit to identifying what you’d like to do in the following 100 days after this (ok, that’s just a nice way to say get a head start on your goals for the next year).

5 Consider making an “activity board” so you don’t get stuck in a rut and can leverage your creativity!

6 Think about what you would do (differently?) if it was the beginning of the year rather than most of the way through it)

You can focus on music (after all, why are you here?) or you could take an even broader view and approach to enjoying the remainder of the year. 

Which of these will you do? What did I forget to include? Let me know in the comments!

What’re you doing?

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What’re you doing?

Do you ever feel like your practicing has fallen into the trap under the sink. It can be really easy to get caught in the comfortable swish of the U joint.  Just be and don’t move.  Don’t practice, or barely practice, or practice but don’t actually change or learn anything.  Loll here in the dark and wait.

Maybe you don’t fall into that trap, but I sure can – especially in “between times” like now – too early for the holidays but after the buzz of the summer.  It could be so easy to stay in the trap because there is so much stuff that needs to be practiced that it can be daunting.  Stuff to be dwelled upon.  To think through.  To work out.  To review.  So much stuff! 

Or maybe we’ll just stay here in the dark (so little motivation). 

Fortunately, playing is more like a diamond ring.  When it’s caught in the trap, it isn’t as enjoyable!  It is totally worth the work of disassembling the drain to rescue it so it can glitter and sparkle. 

No, staying here in the dark isn’t ideal, but sometimes we just need a push to get moving out of the trap. How do we get moving? Well you could start by asking – what’re you doing?  If there’s no succinct answer to that question, the right answer is focus!  On what? Well, how about:

Start small.  Settle on one thing to work on.  Maybe it’s sight reading? Or counting? Or refreshing stuff you were playing but set aside?  The point is to focus on one thing rather than trying to work on everything all at once.

Count the things.  Figure out what needs to be done.  Maybe this should be the first thing – how can you focus on just one thing if you haven’t figured out what the pool of all things is, prioritized them, and then selected one?

Set an end.  After all, you’re breaking out of a trap so while you’re going to focus, it’s not an unending focus!  Figure out how long you want to work on the thing you selected to be first.  Will it be a timeline of a week or a month? Or will it instead be an accomplishment like playing at tempo or steadily or accurately? When you define the end, you will know when you are going on to the next thing.

Keep track.  You knew I’d get around to this.  You won’t know you’ve gotten to the end if you’re not tracking your progress.  This doesn’t have to be elaborate, just note what you did and how you did it.

Compare.  This one can be tricky.  Because you’re not going to compare your progress to anyone else, only to YOURSELF.  You will never know how someone else got to what you’re looking at, but you can know where you were yesterday (or the day before or the last time) and compare yourself to the you before, not someone else ever.

Be consistent.  Pick your timing.  Help yourself by not only doing the thing as you decided (every day, every other day, whatever you determined) but also by sticking to the same time of day every day.  Or tie your time to another event (for example, always practice right after you walk your iguana (or some other event of your day)).

Be nice. You’re not striving for perfection.  In fact, if you do it perfectly, you won’t learn anything.  By the same token, by remembering that mistakes help you learn, you can be your own biggest cheerleader!  (bonus tip – I find that sometimes I need to let the mistakes I make simmer before I can really figure out what I’m learning there, so I write them down so I don’t forget what happened)

Focus!  Don’t “task share”, don’t pick up your phone (unless you’re adjusting your metronome app!), don’t pet your fish, don’t drink your tea.  Just focus on what you’re doing while you practice.  You can do all those other things when you’re done.

What’re you doing?  Do you ever get caught in that sink trap?  If so, how do you get yourself out?  If not, how do you maintain your equilibrium?  Let us know in the comments!

 

 

 

We love a challenge

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We love a challenge 

What is it about a “30-day challenge” that makes them so popular?  Maybe they are attractive because we seem to be addicted to making ourselves better people.  And we also know that to make ourselves better (different might be a better word) we have to make changes.  Change is hard, and maintaining a change is even harder.  And we usually think a month isn’t so long, so you can endure whatever it is that you’ve decided to tackle.

Enter the 30-day challenge!  These are not magic – they are just structure.  And better – they are structure that someone else devised (so we fool ourselves into thinking that, because someone who knows something (maybe) generated it, that it’s better than anything we might come up with).  If someone else came up with it, it will be harder to dismiss partway through.  Besides, structure imposed by someone else isn’t self-improvement, it’s just improvement.

These plans are prescriptive.  They tell us to make a change, and then tell you how to make that change – in small ways, over time (i.e., 30 days).  To help us along, the challenge usually includes some means of noting and documenting the changes we are making (like a calendar).   It really is an adult star chart (because do we really ever outgrow the star chart from our preschool days?).

And because someone (not us) has defined this process as a “challenge” we honor it, and our commitment to it.  We don’t try to get ahead of ourselves – rather, we identify that we need all 30 days to make this change, so we need to allow it to happen over time, but we also can’t rush it!  The authors of the challenges also remind us that it’s ok to miss a day or two, so it is ok to not be perfect.  And we dutifully complete the challenge because we committed to it.

But maybe most importantly of all, these challenges build over time.  My personal favorite – the 30 day burpee challenge – starts out so painlessly that even I could do it.  Day 1 – you do one burpee* and then it builds incrementally over the intervening 30 days until you’re doing enough burpees to tackle anything.

Kidding aside, you can set your own 30-day challenge for anything you need to work on. Not getting to practice enough? Make a 30-day practice challenge!  On day one you might confine yourself to 5 minutes of practice, and increase each day – but also committing to the minutes you complete are also focused on what you want to be working on, not checking facetagram or adjusting your bench, or drinking your tea or any of the many ways we can sidetrack ourselves.  Or you could create a 30-day tuning challenge?  Sight reading? Warmups and technicals? There are so many things you might consider making a challenge to ensure they become part of your everyday life.

What would your 30-day challenge be? Here’s a tracker (download).**  Write in what you’re focusing on and make little increments for each day. Write those in the blocks and check each one off as you accomplish it.  Let me know what you decide (and how it turns out!) in the comments!

 

* If you don’t know, a burpee is a fitness exercise that is a combination of things no one liked doing in PE in school – it’s a pushup mashed into a squat thrust with a layup mixed in that you’re supposed to do really quickly. It builds both strength and cardio. And if you’re not sure, if my sarcasm is too subtle, I usually spend my time reading about 30 day burpee challenges, but do I do them? Ha! No.

 

**Think of it as your little reward for reading to the end!

February

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February

It’s already February which means that January has slipped past us (not sure how that happened, but I double checked – it’s definitely February).  Did you think I was going to let the beginning of the year slide by without bringing up goals and having a plan for the year? Ha!

So, have you identified your goals for the year?  If you did, how’s it going?  If you are like many people, you might have set some goals for the year back in December of early January, but you might not have made too much progress.  However, the year is early yet, so there is still time to catch up!  And if you haven’t set any goals for the year, here’s your opportunity. 

Where to start?  Well – what is important to you that you accomplish?  Is there a tune you wanted to learn? Or is there some technique you struggle with or that you still need to learn? Or maybe you want to be ready to perform for an event?  Some sort of “stretch” you want to try?  Those are all goals. 

What’s important is that you identify something that’s important to you and that you want to do.  It’s not complicated!

Once you’ve set some goals, we’re all caught up and we can get started (or re-started!).  What next?

Well, we need to commit to working on those goals. That means committing to it now.  And tomorrow.  And the next day.  Next month and throughout the year.  So often I tell you to write things down and this is no exception.  You write these down so that the day after tomorrow, when there are loads of other things on your mind, you will still remember that you have a goal, what it is and that it’s important to you that you get there.  Otherwise, it’s easy to get trussed up in the day-to-day and lose sight of it!

But goals are kind of big, so we need to break down each one (this is another place where writing it down can be helpful – we’re about to make a list of tasks!).  No matter the size of your goal, usually it can be broken into smaller tasks – each of which we can finish…and then celebrate!  We just have to keep focused and consistently doing what’s needed and moving on to the next step.

And we need to be kind to ourselves.  If you miss a day or a task takes longer than you thought – ok, it takes longer. Just keep at it.

What are your goals this year?  Do you know how you’re going to get there? Want to share an example?  Let me know in the comments!

Why do scales?

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Are scales your favorite part of practicing?  Do you do scales regularly?  Be honest.

It’s easy to be jaded about scales.  After all, you’ve probably been doing them most of your harp life.  But do you know why? 

Well, obviously, scales have technical potential.  They do embody so many important elements – placing, planning, crosses, rhythm, control, and more.  But there are other things about scales that make them so important.

Scales are the embodiment of practicing a small habit every day to build strength and resilience.  Doing your scales every day not only ingrains the technical elements but also gives you a dependable small win each day that you can leverage to keep yourself on track for your big goals.

Scales have a clear functional purpose but they also have a philosophical purpose.  They can help create a bubble in which you can be present and focused.  They also are a simple act of great potential.  They are the type of easy activity that allows your mind to work.

So it is important to do scales.  But don’t just do them – do them right.  Identify what your focus will be, the outcome you desire.  Keep the small goal in sight, but keep the “grand goal” in mind so that all your work one the simple stuff is always pushing you along the path to your selected stop.  Focus on what you can do today, with an eye to where you’d like to eventually get.

So, do your scales.  Do them well.  Enjoy them – examine what you do and what it means as well as what you could do next.  Do what you can do today as a step to where you are going – the journey has many steps – you might as well enjoy them.

Do you do your scales every day? Where are they taking you?  What could you do better?  Let me know in the comments.  

It’s a new year!

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It’s a new year – that time of year when, after heartily wishing you a Happy New Year, I would normally start blathering on about goal setting.
This year I thought I’d give you a bit of a break (gasp! Is she losing it?) (Nope, just taking a new tack).


The problem with goal setting is that it’s fraught with baggage. We think of goals as things we don’t meet. Or even finish. Or we think that we have set lofty goals and then we don’t “grow into them” like we thought we would. All of which leaves us feeling like we have failed.

Ugh.

This year, I’m going to suggest something different. And yes, I’ve totally stolen this from a million other places. This year will be different (for loads of reasons). So, let’s start differently so we can end differently!

This year, why not write a letter to your future self? Not too future – just to the you that you will be in December. That you will be different from the you as you are just now. Be a good correspondent. 

But, how are you going to do that? how do you compose a letter to someone who you have yet to be meet? Well…

Close your eyes and imagine yourself at the end of the year, preparing for a New Year’s Eve party to welcome in 2024. You are so justifiably proud of the year that was. Let’s do the retrospective as we get dressed. Just like in the movies, watch the montage of your year in review.

What have you learned? Where did you go? What have you done? What changes have occurred (both good and bad)? What worked?  What didn’t? What did you not get to that you kinda wish you hadn’t missed?

Write all those things to your future self – make it a nice, long, juicy letter! Give yourself the details of not only what you did but how you got to each of those actions. Take some time to think about what you will need to do to become the you you’re writing to. Don’t forget to include where you are (and who you are) at this point. Remind you where you were and why you wanted to cross the gap between who you were and who you’ll become.

And remember, that person who will read this is very dear to you – so be nice. Be positive. Be kind!  Pop the letter into an envelope and put it in your planner calendar to be opened in December. 

Of course, between now and then, you can keep notes in your practice journal – just to help your future you have a better recollection of the year gone by. 

Want to share what you’re going to tell you? Leave a comment!

At the Year’s end

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At the Year’s end

It’s the middle of December, and it’s about that time when we begin to take stock of the year that is nearly gone.  Soon we’ll be setting plans for next year, but for now, we need to decide how we think this year has gone.  If you set specific goals earlier this year, then you can check yourself against them now.  You’ll be able to see clearly what you accomplished and what you still need to work on.  

But what if you didn’t set goals at the beginning of the year?  Well,  you could set some “retrospective” goals (sort of like writing everything you’ve already done on your To Do list – you get credit for getting it done, but you didn’t actually have it on the original list!).  But that’s not ideal.

If you hadn’t gotten around to setting and writing goals and you don’t want to add to your To Do list, you might need another way to reflect on the year.  Because, whether you wrote goals or not, you likely still had accomplishments and achievements that are worth noting.  It’s instructive to look back and assess what happened all year and to actively remember the events of the year.  But those activities won’t make themselves obvious – you have to look for them! 

How do you take yourself on a journey reviewing the year?  You guessed it, ask yourself some questions.  What should those questions be? Here are a few.  Although it’s only a few, the answers will be instructive and tell you how you’re doing for the year. 

What is the best thing that happened all year?  What are the runners up? 

 

What did you do that you probably could have skipped?  What didn’t you do that you probably needed to include? 

 

What had you hoped to accomplish that you did?

 

What had you hoped to accomplish that you didn’t?

 

What did you do to take care of you?  Did it work?

 

What did you do that made you uncomfortable because it was (way) outside of your comfort zone?

 

What advice would you give yourself back in January, knowing what you know now in December?

 

What did you learn from all this?

The point of these questions is to meet the need to remember what you did, how you felt, what you should do next.  They are goals, just written differently!

There are, of course, other questions.  You will need your own that reflect your own ideas about what you accomplish in the year.  Spend a little time sussing out which ones work for you.  

What are some questions that you asked yourself to help take stock of the year?  Did you like the answers?  Let me know in the comments!