Freelance Life is Confusing — Setting 3-6 Month Goals May Help Get More Clarity?

Musicians are entertainers. That makes it really weird when we struggle in life, when we face disorganization or boredom or depression.

It’s like that joke… A guy goes to the doctor, says he is depressed, says the world seems horrible and sad. The doctor says hey, go see the great clown Pagliacci, he is town today and he’ll cheer you up. The patient sobs and says, “But doctor, I am Pagliacci!”

_{Hello, you can call me Pagliacci.}

As a struggling musician, it’s really easy to become Pagliacci. You want to be a part of this fun and fulfilling lifestyle, creating music and sharing it and having those energetic experiences that come from touring and going in the studio, etc etc.

But, there’s a ton of slow downtime in the middle. Very few of us get to live a true 24/7 musician lifestyle, and even if we do, it doesn’t last forever. How can one stay sane and feel like life makes sense during the off season?

3 Month Goals

I had a conversation with a friend who is a touring musician. She’s been on the road for years and recently put out a record, so she is a great person to get advice from.

I said how I know what my long term goals are, but I have a hard time feeling satisfied in the short time. It’s hard to have a situation like right now where I don’t have a rehearsal space, so I can’t play my drum set very much… and I often feel stagnant.

She said: “Have you thought about setting short goals? When I put out my record, I had a strict deadline. It wasn’t easy to finish the music before the end of 2017, but I did it because that was my short term goal. Now even though the record isn’t doing as well as my previous one, I can still feel good because I did everything that was within my control to do.”

_{Productivity via goals. source: Unsplash}

Hmm…. That does make sense.

It made me realize that I do have some goals for the short term - in October, I told myself I wanted to focus on money. I need to earn some more to become financially comfortable.

I realized that the problem might not be so much about lacking goals - but about needing to have patience. One goal at a time. There will be a day where I’m touring around the world, promoting my music hard in a new city each day.. but that could be 2, 5, even 10 years from now. First I have to crush today’s goal.

Always Music Always

Luckily the advice came with a catch… always work on music.

One more quote from my friend: “You can also learn to say no to things. Earn enough that you don’t need to stress out… but then stop there and work on music. Don’t feel like you need to spend the maximum number of hours earning money.”

Indeed. And that’s where steem comes in, too - there are ways to create synergy, to earn more money AND work on music simultaneously. That’s what fueled last night’s post, a longform piece about me creating a brand new song from scratch.

I could still do work to clarify by 3-6 month goals. I’m coming to the end of this 3 month period, from October to December 2017… so I’ll probably spend the next two weeks trying to hustle on my current projects, then re-orient with new goals for the Jan-March 2018 timeframe.

Getting advice is good… but the hard and important part is to put it into action. I have to make sure to set new goals soon!

Do you set 3-6 month goals for yourself? What’s one of your current goals?