Well, first of all, Happy New Year!
If you’re like me, your email inbox has been inundated with offers and opportunities for the new year. You’ve probably had friends or relatives ask you what your new year’s resolutions are going to be.
The tricky thing I’ve found about the holiday break is that reality seems to be suspended for a time. Because you don’t have all the normal every day pressures facing you every moment, you start to forget what a time crunch everything normally feels like.
As a result, you start to think how cool it would be to finally finish that one project, or even start a few other projects. “I could do this, or I could do that” you say to yourself.
After you get back into your normal routine, though, or your normal habits, you forget about those ideas. Then, several weeks later you find yourself looking back, having accomplished nothing, and asking yourself, “Wasn’t I going to finish that one project?”
You’ve probably heard the old saying that
“Thoughts lead to actions. Actions lead to habits. Habits lead to character, and character leads to a destiny.”
If we’re not in the habit of finishing projects that we’ve set out to do, that will be our destiny. Projects are a result of our habits. If we don’t finish our projects, it’s because we have bad habits.
So, do this one thing. Pick one new habit you’d like to develop – just one, and focus on it for 30 days. Don’t worry about trying to change or “delete” bad habits. That’s not productive. It’s best to focus on positive things that you want rather than negative things you don’t want.
An example of some good habits for musicians to be in are…
- If you’re a song writer, or you’d like to be, do some creative writing every single day. There is a great website called oneword.com. This site gives you an easy way to accomplish this habit.
- Obviously, practicing your instrument, if you play one. But, don’t just practice – have a plan for a new skill you’d like to develop over the 30 day period.
- Tweet something very interesting every day without it being about you!
Imagine if you focused on developing just one new habit every 30 days. You would be well on your way to an incredibly surprising year!
Good luck!