My Goals

Every year, I set down and revise my musical goals.

Now this last year, it was kinda interesting. In previous years, I had been very specific in my writing. I wanted to get so many song downloads, I wanted to do so many performances, I wanted to get so much STUFF done. And I spelled it out.

But this last year, I got real introspective. I decided that I wanted to enjoy music more, I wanted to learn from it more, I wanted it to come more from inside than from any external drive to succeed or exceed.

So, I had goals like praying every time I started writing a song or doing a recording session. I found myself praying more for increased skills and a deeper understanding of myself through the songs.

One part was that I wanted to overcome my “results” mentality and change that into a “process” mentality. I mean, I wanted to delight in the fun of creating and discovering and enjoy the process instead of just shooting for results.

Over the last year I’ve come to realize that having your “eyes on the prize” is a good thing. It keeps you moving forward. But it also tends to narrow your life, and that it’s often a good thing to take your eyes off the goal once in a while and look around you at all that you already have, instead of only looking at what you want.

Another mental shift that I’ve been working on is having an “abundance” mentality instead of a “scarcity” mentality. The scarcity approach says that there’s only so much success available in the world, so if someone else I know gets some, that means there’s less left for me. That tends to lead to ugly things like jealousy and envy.

The abundance mentality says there’s plenty of goodness and luck to go around. And if someone else gets success, it only means that the stage is better set for me to get some too.

So, I can be genuinely happy for them.

Or I could, if that were always the way I looked at it.

I don’t, but I certainly do a lot more than I did before.

And I guess that’s what goals are for, right?
MRKH
Mark Hansen
http://markhansenmusic.com