Dream Big

Most of us hope to be music stars someday. Many motivational courses teach that you need to visualize yourself winning the awards you hope to get if you want to receive them someday, so why not start now? Here are a few ways you can get those dreams going in the right directions.

WHAT DO YOU WANT?

This is the toughest question for most of us. Many songwriters don't really know what they want. Do you just want to be part of a good songwriting team, writing hit songs for big artists? Do you want to be a singer/songwriter who has his/her own hit records? Do you want to be an artist that co writes with the best hacks in the business turning out Grammy winning after Grammy winning hit? Do you see yourself picking up the Oscar for best movie soundtrack? Do you want to be a great working musician, whose has lead guitar bits lined up in every top studio gig in Nashville? Do you want to tour with a big-name act, and hope to get a chance to co-write with them on their next album? Close your eyes, and envision each of these-do you see yourself in any of these scenarios, or perhaps a few of them? Try to keep a little notebook or blank book you can keep these dreams in, and write them down with illustrations or collages made from pictures of your dream ideas. The clearer it is to you, the more you can see yourself in that situation, the clearer your path to getting there will be. Oddly enough, you may find the world starts to conspire along with you to make this happen-give it a try. The trick is, though, you need to narrow this down. Spreading yourself too thin over too many things makes it really hard to hit a target. You can always go on to the other goals later-in fact, you might even plot out how you can do just this, and make it part of your grand scheme to take over the music world. You are supposed to dream big, here.

WHO WILL HELP?

The main person who needs to help you is you. Sure, others may be able to give you guidance along the way, and you should add these to your book as well, but most of us find out pretty quickly that it is by our own efforts that we get somewhere, and by our own goofs and putting stumbling blocks in our way that we fail. Think of just how you can take an active role in attaining your songwriting goals-what steps you can take, steps inbetween those bigger steps, people and classes that could help you get there, how to take those classes and meet those people and so on. Think also of things you tend to do that can mess you up, and how to keep those from happening. Take care of your body-eat healthy meals, at least cut down on bad habits that spend your money and/or time (many of us have an Internet addiction, for example, that keeps us from actually writing), get sufficient sleep, and find ways to stay happy and relaxed to destress from all the tension our music can bring out in you. Find a role model that you hope to be like, and note how that person solved the problems you are going through trying to be successful. Make sure you find someone from a similar socioeconomic and educational background that followed a similar course to the one you hope to take, and you may find that person to be a better match for you. If you don't know of someone like that, you might just check out the local scene and find someone in your songwriting group that is taking the same steps and ask them how they handle different situations-some find being able to talk to someone just a little higher up the ladder easier to deal with than a celebrity, and you have to admit, they are far more easy to get hold of to ask questions, rather than hope an interview they did might have the information you were hunting for.

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