Music Lessons Tulsa | Setting Goals

This content was created for Curtis Music Academy

In this edition of the Curtis music Academy podcast, I’m going to be discussing how setting musical goals is important for you when you’re playing guitar learning guitar. So this is setting musical goals. This is how you can set musical goals. And so without further ado, my name is Steven. I’ve been a musician for 12 going on 12 years now. I’ve been a musician for 11 years, going on 12 years this coming March and I will be turning 24 years old. That means that I will have been playing guitar for half my entire life span thus far in music lessons Tulsa. And so there’s a lot you can learn from a person who’s been playing more than a decade, two years, over a decade.

You know, that’s crazy. Decade is a long time for music lessons Tulsa. It’s half of my life. It’s half of your life probably. And so what have I learned? And we’ll get into some of that when it comes to setting musical goals. I remember taking an internship at life church, Tulsa or life church, Oklahoma. And I’m in that internship. One of the things we did was we went over our life goals. You know, we were trying to figure out our spiritual gifts are our natural gifts and talents and kind of merging them together into what, what vocation should we be attending to, what vocation should we be in, what jobs should we have, what, what skills, what, what jobs could we be, serving in, in the church to kind of bring about and grow the kingdom of God.

It was incredible, incredible. And one of these things, Craig Rochelle, the pastor of life church across the world or across the U S is, you know, is how, you know, goal setting one Oh one, which is the S setting, how to set smart goals and smart goals is really an acronym. Smart as an acronym for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time sensitive goals. And so we’re going to get into some of that. I wanted to tell you a little bit about my musical or not my musical, but my instructional experience. I’ve been an instructor for five years, going on six years now. And it’s been since I was 18, so 18 to 19, 19 to 20, 20 to 21. 21 to 22, 22 to 23. And now I’m, since I’m gonna be turning 24 this coming March, it’ll have been six years.

And so I’ve learned many things about, teaching different age groups, teaching different people with different, sensitivities, with different situations, with different parents, with different home situations, with, with different, complications. Maybe they’ll, they have epilepsy or maybe they have autism or maybe they’re blind, you know, maybe they’re handicapped, they can’t walk. And so, you know, she, they’re in a wheelchair, you know, there are these things kind of influence and kind of create different scenarios where it’ll either be difficult or less difficult to play and pick up an instrument. And so we want to make sure that we can cater because everyone can learn. I don’t think anyone is as far from learning, I don’t think anyone is exempt from learning except those who don’t want to in music lessons Tulsa.

And soit’s important to one, know how to set musical goals and that’s what we’re going to cover today in our podcast. And so we’re going to be discussing smart goals. And as I said, smart goals are an acronym for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time sensitive goals. So without further ado, setting musical goals, one Oh one. The first point is going to be specific. How do you set a specific goal in music lessons Tulsa? Well, what does specific mean? Well, what a specific means. Specific means to be descriptive, to be exact, to be precise, to be, have a focus or a laser focus on a particular point. So it’s important for us to know exactly what we’re shooting at and shooting for and what location, what are the coordinates, what are the, what is the exact precise location?

What is the exact precise picture or goal we are achieve trying to achieve that tells us when we’re done. It’s important to think about that. What is, what is our specific goal? And so the way I like to think about this is, you know, what does it look like? What does it feel like? What does it taste like? What does it smell like? What does it, you know, what is the feeling of being done look like to me? What, how do I know when I have achieved it? And, and so it’s being specific as possible, you know, if you’re being so suspicious specific to where you can’t be specific anymore, that’s a good sign in music lessons Tulsa.

And so a specific goal of mine would be something like, I want to be able and fluent in playing the G major scale at a hundred beats per minute with no help in my living room sitting in a chair. And so that is a very specific goal. I can, I’m a, I’m at home, I’m in a chair, I’m sitting down, I’m playing, I have my guitar in hand, I’m playing the S the pen, the G major scale. I have the metronome at 50 a hundred beats per minute and I’m doing it by myself. That is a very, very, very specific goal. And the more specific I believe the more, clear it becomes to achieve that goal, the more clearer people and others and yourself can see when you’ll have achieved that. And we want those specific types of goals as our milestones in music lessons Tulsa. One, just one of those characteristics in one of those milestones.

So the next characteristic is having a measurable goal. Can it be measured? If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. That is a quote from John Maxwell, an incredible leader in the business world and in the church world when it comes to leadership. And so he says that if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. And so measurable, what is measurable means that you can kind of put a ruler to it and begin to measure and stretch a line or a string or a, a ruler or, you know, a meter to it and say, Hey, it’s been this distance. This is what they’ve achieved. It’s been this long. They’re this good, you know? So on a scale of one to 10, you know, how good would you rate yourself? You know, we could say, one is a beginner and I’m just, I’m fresh in music lessons Tulsa. I don’t know anything about it till chords and I’m learning chords. And then you go to two, three, four, five, six, seven and eight, nine.

And then 10 is like, I’ve achieved my goal. I can sit in a chair, I’m at home. I’m, I’ve got the metronome at a hundred beats per minute ready to pitch, push play. I’ve got my guitar in hand and I’m by myself. And then once I push play, I can execute the scale at a hundred beats per minute by myself with no help at home, sitting in a chair. That is, that is measurable. That’s man, he’s, he’s doing all those things. And I think the more specific we get, the more measurable it is. My third point is being achievable. Is it achievable? Is it, is it really possible, you know, to do that? Of course that is, you know, don’t do something that isn’t achievable or possible to do that you’re just going to set yourself up for failure.

Fourthly, you know, relevant. Is it, is it relevant? Is it actually something that you like to do or something that actually pertains to what you’re doing in life right now? Does it make sense for you to do that? You know, or does it not? That’s relevant in music lessons Tulsa. And then lastly, one of my favorite is time sensitive. You know, does, are you trying to learn it within a specific amount of time? You know? So is it a week? Is it a month that you want to achieve this? Is it a year that you wanna achieve this? Is it time limited? You know, we’re going to learn this in seven days and by the first day you should be this good that’s measurable. The third day, this is good. The seventh day you should have achieved it and no, but anyways, there’s time wrapped up in that. And so it’s time sensitive in the more time sensitive, the more measurable it can be as well. And so that is how you can set musical goals is be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time limited, sensitive when achieving or setting them.