One of my most prized lyrics is, “It becomes a wish and not a goal, when things move beyond my control”.

I wrote this at university, whilst contemplating whether I wanted to carry on writing songs.

“Trying” is the word I most associate with the word “goal”. A “wish” is something you tend not to be in control of and your career in music should be the opposite of that.

So, what is your goal? What are your trying to achieve?

The cliché is that you, “want to make it”. What does that even mean? Do you want to make a living from this? Tour the country? Tour Europe? Hit a million streams on Spotify? Like all goals, you need a quantifiable end game. Something to aim for.

It is also important that you and the members of your musical team (band, manager, agent etc.) have the same goals. For example, at the moment I am more focused on getting good quality recordings than going out gigging. Although, I am aware both are important. I am now choosing to preference the recording. I think my band are at a point where we need to get more ears on the product, than those owned by the five people that might troop to the city centre on a stormy Tuesday night to hear us (that makes us sound terrible but honestly we are good!). A now former member of the band thought it should take a different direction and that is fine. Musical differences are all too common. Choose the path that you feel is right for your brand and your business.

As with anything, short term goals are a great way to stay motivated. Forgive another metaphor, but if your dream is to run a marathon, trying to jog 26 miles on your first day isn’t likely to end well.

Having an end goal is also definitely beneficial. Along your musical journey, you will hit many crossroads. The direction you take should always be with your end goal in mind. Knowing your end goal also helps you to ask the right questions. If you know what you are trying to build, it is much easier to ask for assistance building it.

So, the key to this ramble of cliches and metaphors is that you should be setting short-term and long-term goals to measure progress whilst eliminating distraction.