Recently, I had the opportunity to read Jon Acuff’s book “All It Takes Is a Goal”. I’ve been a fan of his for years, and enjoy his podcast of the same title. The thing about his work is while he started writing in the business sector, much of his work can also be translated and inferred into music or any other world. This book codified and concretely put together things that I knew to be true through my years of learning music as well as my 22 years of teaching music.
One of the key components to learning music and practice is goal setting. Even at the start of learning music, there is usually a goal in mind. It could be something as simple as “learn to play the keys on the piano”. Or it could be more complicated as learning to play a specific piece. Along the way, you’ll need to build and grow the skills necessary to make that goal happen.
Smart Goals
Of course, we all know about SMART goals. Specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and timely. If I’m just learning how to play the piano, playing Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” in 6 months is probably not a SMART goal! That takes time, work and skill.
3 Types of Goals
Easy Goals
How Acuff breaks the goals down in the book is fantastic. He talks about 3 different types of goals. He talks about easy, middle and guaranteed goals. The easy goals are just that. Easy. Simple. Basic. If we’re talking about practicing (as we are this month!), an easy goal would be “Practice 4 out of 7 days this week.” That could be 5 minutes, 20 minutes, an hour. But it’s simple. Or if you wanted to be even easier, you could say, “Practice 4 out of 7 days this week for 5 minutes.” That’s something that for most students, should be achievable. You can find 20 minutes in your week somewhere. That may mean a little less social media, less scrolling YouTube, whatever the case.
Middle Goals
Moving on to the middle goals, after you’ve stacked some easy goals is a little more time consuming. Acuff talks about middle goals being thirty to ninety days in length. There’s a little more length to these goals. He says that these goals are flexible. And this is something I’ve regularly encouraged with students, and I’m going to lean into it a little more this month. One thing that my mother made me do when I was practicing, was to practice while she hand washed the evening dishes. That was my focused time and it worked for me. But life can be busy. 30-45 minutes may not always be accessible in one big chunk. So how do you do it? Break it into smaller times. Instead of committing to 30 minutes in one chunk a day, you could practice for 5 minutes before you leave for school or work, another 10 minutes when you come home, and 15 minutes after dinner. It is intentional, but not rigid.
Guaranteed Goals
When we get to what Acuff calls “Guaranteed goals”, these are the ones that hurt. They take time, commitment, effort, diligence and focus. These are ninety days to a year. These are the pieces that will take effort and work to make sound beautiful. In these goals, he brings in the idea of attaching a number to it. In music, you probably wouldn’t want to learn 35 new pieces in a year, but maybe that’s your goal. However, your goal could possibly be to learn 3 difficult pieces by a composer in the course of a year. Or whatever you tailor it to be.
Make It A Game!
One of the things that I most appreciate about the book is the concept of gamifying what you’re doing. Yes, working on goals, whether it’s music or anything else, is work, but when you make it a challenge and make it fun, you’re much more able to see your progress and success. As he points out, one of the most important things in this game is that you make the rules. You’re in charge. For many students who are younger, this concept may not be something that they quite understand or are able to do yet. That is why my mother made me practice the piano. I didn’t want to. I would have much rather done anything else. But my parents saw musical ability in me, and wouldn’t let that go and to this day, I am truly grateful. Of course, she didn’t quite make it a game. But you could. As a parent, maybe it’s coming up with one of those checkboxes, so if the goal is practicing daily or a few times a week, maybe there’s a reward tied to it. The possibilities are endless, based on your creativity. However, what it does is to build those skills in the students so that, as they mature, it continues in their musical journey, or they have built the skills needed to create, navigate and achieve goals that translate outside of the world of music.
We all have goals whether or not they are stated. When you are a parent, and you sign your children up for music lessons, you have a goal in mind. When you are teaching students, you have a goal in mind for them. This book does an excellent job of being simple to understand, and relatively easy to start implementing.
I’m looking forward to hearing what your goals are. Comment with what your musical goals are for 2024, whether that’s here on the post or on social media!
You can find the book on Amazon.
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