Ep. 14: Practical steps to achieving a goal - a singer's guide to getting stuff done!

Last episode was about figuring out your vision, and so this week we're talking about taking that vision and making it a concrete goal and task list! It's the (sort of boring) oh-so-important stuff that leads to success. So grab a pen and paper and come get successful.

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Transcript

0:17

Hello, and welcome back to the Jewish singer podcast. Thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate you tuning in and I hope that you're enjoying each and every episode. And if you are, make sure that you follow me on Spotify, subscribe on YouTube, whichever platform you're listening on and share with your friends, those singer friends that I know you have that would love to hear these tips and inspiration for singing. Okay, today's episode is for all my Virgos out there. We are in September, and September is ripe with the planning and organizing energy. Okay? Do you feel it? School is back in session now, and moving. We're moving and shaking. We're ready to take on new projects. To be honest, I, I normally really feel that energy just like so clearly shift as we move into Elul and then we move into September. And this year it, it feels a little bit less, it feels a little harder. We have really hard things going on in the world and in the Jewish community. And so I, I personally feel a little bit less motivated than I normally do. So I just want to put that out there that like, if you're not feeling that energy yet, um, But I think this is sort of the energy of this time period in the Jewish calendar, and it's a great time to be discussing how we can move towards goals and make some real action towards achieving what you have planned for this year. And in the last episode, I didn't do an episode last week, sorry guys, it was the end of summer I just didn't, I just didn't get to it. This is why you batch content guys. So you don't run into not having something, um, because one week you just don't have it in you. But you know, that's neither here nor there. Last episode we talked about vision. If you didn't listen to that episode yet, go back and listen to that episode first so that you can get in the right headspace of, having a vision for yourself and what exactly is that vision. We get really clear about that and, and then do the actionable steps that we're going to talk about in this episode today. So today we're going to hone in on how do I achieve a goal, a specific goal. I figured out what my vision is, how am I going to get there? So today we're going to talk about what are your actionable steps. Okay. Fun stuff, right? I highly recommend getting a piece of paper notebook and a pen, by the way, I keep notebooks for everything. I have like my songwriting notebook and my teaching notebook and then my notebook where I just like jot down stuff and I have a planner and I'm really into that. So if you're like that, can you tell I'm also a Virgo? If you're into that, grab your pen and paper, write some stuff down. It will help like, you know, gel some ideas that you're having into some concrete things as we go. This episode is gonna be really geared towards people who need help getting off the ground. Okay, so if you're someone who's Regularly already writing your own music and already putting it on Spotify You may already employ these types of tools and skills, uh, or maybe you don't. And you want to like really break it down for yourself and get really clear about what are the action steps to take to achieve a goal. Okay, so in the last episode, I talked about. The big vision and maybe for you, that's like, you know, the selling out Binyanei Hauma. Okay. And so for now, I'm going to assume that most of the people listening to this are not near that goal. Okay. That's not their like next step, right? Most of us listening to this are probably more along the lines of like, okay, I'm putting out cover songs. I'm writing my own songs. How do I get my own songs out there into the Jewish music world? So I'm going to be catering to that. Okay. Kind of situation as I talk about this. So if you're big vision, let's talk about the big vision for a second If your big vision is something like selling out, Binyanei Hauma wonderful. Okay. I love it. Dream big sister friend, but you have to also acknowledge that then there's gonna be Steps to get there. So we have a first step in the process of working backward from the vision Okay, we want to get to one goal. I'm gonna call a goal a smaller project than, doing a huge show in a huge auditorium. Okay. So if that's my vision, that's my long term goal. What am I going to have to achieve leading up to that to really get there? Okay. So if you're like me and you're, putting out cover songs on Spotify, really not even performing much. you know, in a solo performer setting, then you've got to think, okay, I want to get to Benine Hauma. Before that, I'm going to have to, sell out a smaller auditorium. Before that, I'm going to have to be doing, house concerts or doing my own show in a small theater. Before that, I might be doing kumzutzes. Before that, I might be putting out cover songs so you want to work backwards. I'm just throwing out examples there, but you want to work backwards and figure out Well, what are the steps that you might take to? the followers, gain the audience that would get you to such an opportunity. Okay. Hope that makes sense. You wanna start with the vision, work backwards and figure out which goal we're actually working on. now. Okay. You're not going to be thinking about tasks and action steps towards a huge vision right now. That isn't, um, what we would call attainable right now. Okay. Because that's overwhelming. It's just an overwhelming thing to undertake if you're like, well, I'm not, that's not my next step. That's not where I'm holding right now. Okay. So where are you holding right now? And then, you'll tell it what to do. And it'll say, I'm going to go to that place. And then, you'll find your action items from there. We're going to say we're still working on the. Putting out songs goal. Okay. That's what we're holding right now. Just for example's sake. Okay? So do this with me. Figure out what your goal is. Is it putting out a cover song? Is it putting out an original song with an original instrumental track? Or a cover song with an original instrumental track? Okay? All of these are going to, depending on what the goal is, that's going to dictate the action items for you, obviously. Okay, so here's where your pen and paper is going to come in handy. So the first thing you're going to want to do is define the goal. Okay. Be as specific as you can be as clear as you can. And have you ever heard of this thing called smart goals? It's an acronym. S means specific. M is measurable. A, achievable. R, relevant. And T, time bound. I love the relevant there. Again, it goes back to like, Is it relevant to say your goal is to sell out Benine Ha'oma right now? If it is, cool, but for most of us it is not, right? So that's not necessarily a goal that you want to map out for yourself right now. Map out a much more achievable and relevant goal. Relevant can also mean other things in your life too. Like is this matim(suitable) for me in my life right now? You know, like, is this something that I can and want to prioritize? So get really specific. What's the song that you're going to put out? Does it require an original instrumental? Does it require live instruments? Um, make sure, yeah, make sure that this is something that you can take on right now that you can manage. And then time bound, uh, make sure that you're giving yourself a goal date. And this date can always shift as needed, but it's very important to have a goal. Uh, right now I'm working on putting out a cover of, Avinu Malkeinu and it's great because goal is built in for me because I obviously want to get it out during Elul I want to get it out before the Yomim Norayim. That means there's, I need to prepare well in advance and make sure that it's all set to go in time for people to enjoy the music before it becomes no longer relevant. So once you've got that clear for yourself, the next thing you want to do is figure out what are the key things or the key milestones that you need to do to achieve this goal? So I wrote down here for myself. Okay. So we'll say the end goal is that the cover song is out and it's great and everybody loves you and everybody's cheering for you. Okay. What has to happen before that? I like to work backwards. So before. Everybody in the world knows your song. You need to advertise for your song. Okay. So how, what's that going to look like? So there's, either social media or there's, telling all your friends or sending emails to an email list that you're hopefully garnering in some way, shape or form, and we can talk about that in another episode. what are the ways that you're going to put, put this out there? Before you're able to do that, you need to release the song, right? It needs to be, it needs to be accessible to people somehow. So where's that going to be? YouTube, Spotify, Apple, 24, six, um, shout out to 24, six, making a kosher Jewish platform for listening to music. Okay. And before that. Working backwards further. Okay. Well, if I want to release it, okay, I have to have the song ready and I have to have album cover art. Okay. This is like a silly thing to, identify as a key milestone, but it could be, it could be a very key milestone for you. Maybe you want to have somebody design the cover art for you, or maybe you're just going to go on Canva and it's going to be an afterthought and you're going to stick your name on there and a picture and whatever. You don't care, but it could be something that you really put a lot of Thought into. And so that could be a key milestone for you. And before you're going to do the album art, you're going to record the song. And that I'm going to include in that, you know, mixer mixing and mastering, and you have to figure out for yourself. Where are you going to record the song? Do you have the capability to record it yourself and send it out of house for mixing, Or are you going to be going to the studio and someone's going to record and mix for you? So those are all things to keep in mind. You're going to have someone to schedule with, and budget to think about. Okay, and now before the recording process, you're going to be in the planning phase, that means you need the instrumental track. I'm going to lump these two things together, getting the instrumental and practicing the song, getting really clear about what is the vibe that you want to give over? What is this song about to you? Why do you want to sing this song? This is really important. If you're going to be creating an original instrumental track with a producer. They're gonna want reference songs like send them like what's your vibe? What are you going for? What kind of energy is this song gonna have and then you're gonna want to practice the song to create your own sense of uniqueness Especially, especially important for a cover song when you are making something pre existing your own. And I'm totally guilty of just kind of like copy pasting somebody's song into like, okay, well, it's my voice now and this is how I sing it, but it's not really all that different from the original song, you know, in terms of style or, you know, whatever. Even the way that it's sung. So I do encourage you if you're doing a cover song to make it as unique as you can Especially if it's very well known Okay So now that we have sort of a breakdown of the key things that you need to do Truthfully, I think maybe even one or two of these things could be lumped into the same umbrella goal And then from there, you're going to want to create sub goals and, listing your tasks. Okay. So for each of those things that we just talked about, for instance, like recording the song. You need to find a producer. Maybe you don't already know one. Maybe you don't have a go to person and so you need to ask around. So you're going to put on your task list, ask a few friends who they've used or go, look at the music of people that you like that have come out recently and figure out who their producer was. And then you have to contact the producer and say, are you available? What are your rates? Like that whole back and forth thing. So that's its own, you know, set of sub tasks under this particular. Goal or task, sub goal, and you should write that down. Just, this is for clarity for your sake so that you don't kind of get like, ah, this is overwhelming. Cause I know that when I did my very first cover song, I felt overwhelmed by the idea and it really took a lot of, pulling myself out of the gutter, pulling myself out of my pity party of like, I don't know what to do and this is hard. And like, I feel overwhelmed. Okay, so make it make it easy on yourself figure out what the steps are and get somebody's help If if you're not sure or if your brain doesn't work this way, you're not very organized person By the way on this topic. I love using this software online called Notion. It's a website. You basically like create your own filing system electronically. Like, with, uh, pages, you can have tables, you can just have, you can have lists, and there's AI involved that can help you build those lists if you need, and it's very customizable in the look, and you can add emojis to it, and make it pretty, and I really love the look and feel of it, aside from, um, Only just pen and paper or using other project management softwares. So go check that out notion. so I keep all my notes for like, when I take notes during voice lessons, all my notes for podcasting is in this and it's, it's really, really great. I highly recommend. Where was I? What was I talking about? Okay. I was talking about the subtasks, the tasks for each sub goal, okay? And these are the things that you're going to be doing daily or weekly, however long that you give yourself. And I think this is like a good time to be reassessing. Once you've made all of these subtasks, it's a really good time to reassess your time frame. Because you might. Have underestimated at first how much went into a particular project. And then you say, well, like I really was planning on releasing this in four weeks. And you might look at all the, the tasks and look at your calendar or you know, we've got chagim coming up. And you might go like, oh, that's actually really not. That's not feasible and I'm super bad at this like ADHD time blindness. I think that time is Infinite and it very much is not Particularly when you have little kids and so I really encourage you to be super honest with yourself about how much time you actually Have to achieve a goal and there is no shame in in having it be a longer timeline. Okay. Cause then you feel like you can actually achieve it and it helps you feel more motivated along the way and more likely that you'll actually succeed. And depending how nitpicky you want to get or how, how Virgo organized you want to get, you can, make a calendar view in put in, okay, this is the day that I'm going to do this. This is the day I'm going to do this. Or you can just make like weekly goals for this week. I want to get. Chick chick chick done. And you want to hold yourself accountable. So at the beginning of the week, review, what do I need to do this week to stay on track for my goal? And then at the end of the week or the beginning of the following week review, did I get everything done that I said I wanted to do? And if not, why not? What needs to shift around? Do I need to shift my, planning for my schedule in future weeks? Does the timeline need to be shifted? You know, like all of that. You can see as you go, if it's working out the way that you've planned your project and really make sure that you are taking time to celebrate the wins as they happen. Every time you check something off your, your task list, give yourself a pat on the back, It keeps you motivated and just feeling good about yourself. It's so important. These things can be overwhelming sometimes. And. There's no reason why you shouldn't feel really proud of yourself and And just going back for a second about like timeline, once you figure out with the producer what their rate is, you know, planning for the few, few plus hours in the studio and figure out the budget for yourself, how much is this actually going to cost me? With the track and then you go, is this something I need a budget for? Do I need to extend this project out a few months because I needed some time to save up for this? and while I'm thinking about this I think in one of my episodes I had said that I would love to do another episode about how to make a cover song especially on a budget. So I still want to do that. And I think that it ties in nicely to what we talked about today, but I can get more specific and give you more tips. I think today I don't want this episode to get too long. Cause I have more to say about this topic than I thought. So look forward to that episode upcoming about. Tips and tricks for budget friendly music production. Yay. Um, okay. I really hope that you found this episode helpful and I hope that you really do, take that pen and paper and write out this goal that you have for yourself upcoming we're coming into the new year and it's a perfect time to figure out. How do you wanna come into the new year with regard to your singing? How do you wanna show up as a singer this year? What does that look like for you? What's your goal? Choose a goal that's attainable, very clear, and then. Make your task list. Figure out what are the steps you need to take to get there. I would be so happy to talk to anyone who needs help with this or you have a particular question about any step along the way when it comes to doing cover songs or any other vocal goal that you might have this year. And if part of your vocal goal is taking voice lessons, then I would be so happy to help. Feel free to get in touch with me. I'll put the link to book a lesson in the show notes. I absolutely love working with singer songwriters who have beautiful, holy music that they wanna put out into the world, but they're feeling not so confident about how they're sounding with their own music. Just a few tweaks here and there to get you sounding your best so you can put out your music into the world and feel really proud of what you created. So feel free to be in touch with me. I'd love to work with you. And thank you so much for tuning in today. I'll see you next time. Happy singing.