Having A 5 Year Plan!

Having A Five Year Plan!

Sometimes, things don’t always work out the way you plan them – but if you’re an independent artists trying to make your mark on the biz, you can’t just go about your business willy-nilly and hope that someday the music business fairy is going to leave a record contract under your pillow. You have to have a plan!

I once heard in a podcast about the music industry, that people who write out a concrete plan are around 80% more likely to become successful. In sitting down, and forcing yourself to envision where you want to be in 5 years, (then where you want to be in 1 year, and each subsequent year after that) and formulating a step-by-step plan as to how you will achieve that vision, will help you to organize it in your head and live it out.

I remember writing out my 5 year plan a year ago, and as painstaking as it was, I look back on it and can’t believe all the things I accomplished last year that I hoped I would. Now, plans change, so it’s also important to keep in mind that your plan has to be malleable, and as different opportunities come up, you will need to change your plan accordingly. Today I had to sit down and re-edit my 5 year plan because so many new variables have popped up that I didn’t anticipate.

When writing your plan – be specific. If part of the immediate plan is to ‘do cardio for 30 minutes, 3 times a week’, then what’s the overall goal? Is it ‘To be a dress size smaller in 2 months.’? or ‘To perform a 45 minute set at a club without getting out of breath.’?
Here’s an article that helped me in writing down my 5 year plan: http://www.mindtools.com/page6.html
Hope it helps you too! Happy planning ☺
xoDJP