Thought Of The Week: “Goals”

As we embark on a new school year and concertizing season goals are something we all think about. 

Some goals could be: “Wanting to be 1st chair in your school orchestra”, “Wanting more gig opportunities”, “Wanting to improve one aspect of your playing in the next few months” or “preparing for an audition”

Whatever your goal, while it is important to see the ending, don’t neglect the smaller goals that lead to the achievement of your goal. 

Lets say you want to prepare for that big audition that’s coming up. Instead of focusing on just the end result think about what you need to do every day to get there. Break up your big goal into smaller, bite sized goals. For example, get yourself a practice journal and write down a very achievable goal to reach every day. It can even be as small as “by the end of today I will be able to consistently play this one measure in tune” or “in the next 10 minutes I will master this shift”.

The accumulation of these small goals which you have now turned into victories accumulate to the realization of your overreaching goal. 

No goal is too big if you take time to break it up. Also, you may find that during the process you uncover an even bigger goal or interest that you may have not thought of before. Trust the process!