It's about that time of the year again when people decide they're going to conquer the planet in 365 days. Resolutions are being written this week and for a lot of us they will be broken by next month. An artist I've been working with explained to me that he falls victim to this every single year. He wants 2018 to be the year where he actually sticks to his goals. I want to share what we spoke about.
This artist and I met through the course of this year over a project that he wanted to finish. He started conceptualizing for this project quite late so we got to recording quite late in the year. It's needless to say we still have work to complete in 2018 and he wanted to know how he can ensure that he completes what he sets out to do for the year. I told him to firstly take the unnecessary pressure off himself. He got quite worked up about not being able to finish his project in 2017 and it really bothered him and all that extra pressure wasn't helping. I advised that instead of setting a whole lot of goals for 2018, he should break the goals down into habits. By doing this, he'll be able to dedicate his time to finishing small bite-sized chunks of work each day instead of freezing up before the end of March.
There are many theories out there on how long it takes a human to develop a habit but that's not important right now. What's important is that habits are built. Are you completing your daily tasks? Are you finishing a song, a beat, a blog post, a video etc daily/weekly? If you can complete a month or two of this then your habit will surely be set.
What should your daily tasks involve? The trick will be to reverse engineer your tasks from your goals that you wanted to achieve and see what you come up with. If the goal is to come up with 2 albums in a year, break it down and challenge yourself to write one song every week. By the end of the year you'll have enough music for 4 albums. Habit set. Goal surpassed.
They say that the success of next year lies in your daily activities. Do best and develop those habits.
Regards,
SB
I agree wholeheartedly with this. A goal is something to work towards, habits are what get you there. Sometimes it's a matter of something simple like waking up earlier to get your day started and other times, it's about creating or breaking a much harder habit.
I also don't believe there is a set timeframe for how long it takes people to develop habits. Everyone is different. Some people have all the time in the world to do things at their own pace but don't have the drive whereas others (like people with kids) may have a huge amount of drive, but no time...it really depends on the person.
My dad used to tell me "Take care of the little things and the big things will take care of themselves" and I'm still in awe of how true this is
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Speaking on that one hour thing. I remember how much more I could get done if I woke up one hour earlier. I wasn't able to maintain it for a long time but I definitely saw the benefit of having 7 extra hours each week.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Definitely. What you surround yourself with can also make a difference in your own motivation. My lazy 18 year old recently moved back home, sleeps til 2pm and doesn't lift a finger. I went from getting up between 6 and 7am to now, where I can barely bring myself to get out of bed before 11am. There are more little things that can be changed than people realize
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
This is So me right now. I really want that hour back some days, but I can't seem to do more than roll over and write down a few ideas in the morning before falling back asleep.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
This is something that needs to be applied
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Easier said than done. People get discouraged quickly and they underestimate their ability to acquire the new habit.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit