This year, I had a couple of good ideas for goals and it was difficult to choose between them.  But I have settled onto a single overarching goal. I finally decided to select the one with the least probability of success. Foolish possibly, but I determined that it was a better fit for me.

I set this year’s goal to be able to play two hours of fast tunes. Not that you’d ever want to do that – that would be sort of hard to listen to if you were in the audience. But, even so, it was important to me to be able to pull it off if challenged. Of course, no one is likely to make that challenge to me – except me!

I think this is a smart goal because I used the “SMART” principle to develop it.  That is, this goal is specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timed.  How’s that you say?

Specific – I want to focus on fast tunes. Not that I won’t play or learn slow airs or songs, but I want to primarily learn jigs, reels, hornpipes, slipjigs, marches, strathspeys, barndances, and polkas!

Measurable – I just have to fill two hours and I have a watch!

Achievable – I calculate that two hours will require about 80 tunes. While that’s a lot, I’m not starting from zero!  I’ll build on the tunes I’ve already learned, so that significantly reduces the number of tunes left to learn!

Realistic – OK, this is the furthest from “locked in”.  Life gets in the way, and this means that I will have a lot of music to learn – but I’ll do the best I can. And I developed a new strategy to be exposed to tunes I wouldn’t likely find if I was floundering around for tunes so that will propel me forward.

Timed – This is a leap year, so I get an extra day to work on this!

What are your goals this year? Are they SMART? Let me know what you are planning to work on this year!