Setting strategic goals for your music career is one of the most important things that you should be doing right now.   Many artists fall into the trap of immediately executing on their biggest dreams without having an actual plan.  A well thought out plan considers the current stage of your career and then follows up by creating goals for where you want to be. 

There are only two types of goals you need in order to be successful as a musician.

#1  Outcome Goals

These are the big goals that most artists have no problem coming up with.  These might include things like:

• You want to win a grammy

• You want to get a Sync placement

• You want to start making $100K a year with your music
  

These are incredible goals, however without the proper second type of goal you will never achieve your pie-in-the-sky dreams.  You can’t just GET A GRAMMY or land a sync placement overnight.  These don’t just happen on their own.  These are the BIG wins that you call home to mom about saying “Mom, I MADE It!”  

You need one other element to make this first type of goal a success.  Before I dive into 2nd type of goal you first have to dream big and commit to these Big Goals.  You do this by asking yourself Where do I want to be a year from now.  Do you want to be:

• Moved out of your mom’s basement

• Celebrating your first Sync placement

• Telling all your friends that you landed an editorial playlist on spotify
  

Figure that out.  Map out what you want your career to look like.  The good news is that you don’t have to fall into the trap of the comparison game because it's going to look different for everyone.  After you’ve taken this first step, dream even bigger and look 5 years into the future! 

• Do you want to be making $100K from your music

• Do you want to have your own studio

The possibilities are endless but MAKING these types of plans is the important part.  Write them on a white board and look at them everyday. I truly believe in the law of attraction but I also believe in working towards these goals.

This brings me to my 2nd type of goal which is THE most crucial AND the most forgotten of the two types of goals

#2 Process goals

Process goals embrace all the small wins.  They are the actionable tasks that get you to the outcomes you’ve written down as your biggest dreams.   These seemingly tedious tasks are not the glamorous goals you might post on social media. They are things like:

• Send out 10 emails

• Make that phone call to that client you are trying to close
  

These types of process goals will help get you to your outcome goal.

So, let's break this down with a real example.  Say you want your music placed on a tv show or movie and finally land that sync placement in one year.  That’s a great goal but you won’t just wake up and land a sync placement out of the blue.

With this goal in mind you want to now ask yourself what are the process goals underneath this bigger goal?  You might write down tasks such as:

• Create a database listing 50 licensing contacts 

• Create a database of 50 music libraries

• Create a list of 50 music supervisors

• Create a list of 50 sync agents

• Send 10 emails a  day

• Make 5 calls a day

• Send 3-7 instagram DMs a day to influential people who can help you 

Now no one is going to applaud you for sending those 10 emails but these are the most crucial steps to getting you closer to your dream.   Imagine how you will feel when you accomplish your wildest dreams and let that energy fuel you as you brainstorm the small actions you have to take to make that goal a reality. 

Hopefully this helped.  I would love it if you shared  some of your outcome goals and process goals with me.  Message me on Instagram and I’ll be sure to respond to every single message. 

Also, make sure to check out this space each month. I will be sharing more strategies and resources to help you build a profitable music brand.