Do you have a plan? Whatever we do in life, we should always have goals. We should continually re-invent ourselves to grow. I recently went to the Global Leadership Summit, and as usual it was awesome! The speakers are always top notch. The conference always helps me to re-evaluate my goals, my why & my workflow. Here were some of the speakers this year: Sheryl Sandberg, COO Facebook Marc Lemonis : CNBC’s the profit Immaculee Ilibagzia (survivor of the Rwandan genocide) Angela Duckworth- Grit Juliet Funt- Whitespace Lazlo Bock - Senior Advisor of Google These people were just filled with awesome information and motivation. Here are some notes from them that I found helpful: Laszlo Bock: Give your work meaning. What is your why? What is the thing that drives you? 100% exertion = 0% thoughtfulness -think about that, we are constantly trying to get things done that we are not strategically thinking about how we should go about our work in a better way. Juliet Funt: De-crapify your workflow. Ask yourself if there is anything you can get rid of. What really deserves your attention. What is going to really move you forward? Be aware of thieves of productivity: Drive (When you plan too much) Excellence (Perfectionism, suffering from It’s not good enough) Information (overload) Activity (overly busy) Angela Duckworth: GRIT: = sustained passion & perseverance Talent x effort = skill, but SKILL x effort = achievement You don’t have to be the most talented to achieve Effort counts twice You need to have Deliberate Practice. When you get comfortable, you stop developing Building Grit: 1. Develop your interests before training your weaknesses a. Know the science of deliberate practice b. Feeling confused & upset you can’t do something is good c. Can you do more deliberate practice 2. Cultivate purpose beyond self- be part of something larger than yourself 3. Have a Growth mindset- a Growth Mindset Predicts Grit 4. Don’t Quit on a Bad Day All of this advice makes me think and re-evaluate my goals & plans for my business. It also makes me think about how many tasks I am doing that aren’t as important to my business. You should be doing this too. So take a look at what you are doing. What do you really want to accomplish in life? In work? (yes, being a musician is work & a business, so think of it that way!) First thing you need to do is write down your Why and Create a Mission statement. Answer these questions: What does success look like to you? What is your lifetime goal with your life, your work? Where do you want to be in five years? For your Why, ask yourself these questions: Why are you doing what you do? What makes you come alive? What are your innate strengths? Then Create a Mission statement. Answer these questions: What do you do? How do you do it? Who do you do it for, or Why do you do it? What value are you bringing? Here is my mission statement: Michelle Lockey is an award-winning singer-songwriter creating emotionally compelling music for Film, TV & Ads. Next: Create a Five Year goal. Right down everything you would need to do to accomplish that goal . Organize that into Five- One year goals. Then you can break down each year goal into 4-90 Day goals. Make a list of tasks, and decide which ones will really help you to move forward toward your goal. Eliminate all the others. For example, if your goal is to make a living off of licensing music, then maybe you need to cut out gigs that don’t pay enough and take up too much time. Or spend less time on social media & busy work. In the world of music licensing, we have what is called the Five year Plan. That means that it usually takes about five years to see a consistent income from licensing music. It is like building a business. It takes time. There is no quick fix, but you can increase your learning curve. Sometimes the Five year plan gets sidetracked. Life happens, stuff happens, direction changes.. And that is ok. Just keep re-evaluating & adjusting. Here is an example of my “Five” year plan: Five year Goal: Make six figures a year licensing music Goal Year one: Learn to craft music for Film & TV 90 Day Goals: Make a list of conferences to attend, attend at least one conference. Find courses to take, Meet two co-writers & write x number of songs Goal Year two: craft 20 songs and 10 instrumentals 90 Day goals: Work with co-writers who produce to save cost Write a weekly song or two instrumentals to a theme Learn my DAW software Learn Recording techniques Pitch to x number of listings/publishers Goal Year Three: Increase amount of music pieces and record more on my own Write 60 songs/instrumentals Learn how to craft cues Learn how to mix and master Meet music supervisors and pitch directly The remaining years are mostly building my catalog, continually pitching and writing for opportunities & getting songs signed. The first few years of any business are the building years. So make sure you plan for that. Do the things that you can control. Be on the offense so to speak. If you are great at writing music in a certain genre and are getting it signed, & placed, then perhaps focus on that instead of working on more genre's that may not be your thing. Having your goals & a plan written out will help you to achieve your goals rather than aimlessly going about. Make sense? So, Do you have a plan yet??? Get to Work!!
Michelle Lockey is an award-winning singer-songwriter creating emotionally compelling music for Film, TV & Ads. She is committed to giving back by teaching workshops and building a community of songwriters that support each other through the music licensing journey! Want to learn how to license your music? Go to LicensingSongs.com for more info!
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AuthorMichelle Lockey is a multi-award winning singer-songwriter sharing the knowledge she has learned over the years writing for Film & TV. Like what you are reading? Please Sign up to receive a FREE Music Licensing checklist! 10 Steps to Sync Success
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