5 Essential Tips for Crushing Your 2021 Music Goals

Although it may seem crazy, 2021 is almost here. And whether or not you met all of your goals for 2020 or you barely got to one of them, a new year allows for new goals and new possibilities. For many, it’s a fresh start. 

2020 was an insane year. The pandemic changed everyone’s life and that is no exception for those of us within the music industry. Even in the midst of a pandemic however, many found excitement in learning something new, starting a new idea, working on a new project, creating new songs, or making advances within their career. It was a bittersweet feeling - having extra time to work on things important to us, but giving up some needed socialization and human interaction.  

But as the year comes to an end, now is the time to think about the things we accomplished and how we can grow upon those accomplishments. It is also a time to think about what it is we want to achieve within the new year. 

With that being said, here are 5 things to keep in mind when setting goals for yourself and your career within the coming year: 

Write Down Your Goals

Writing down your goals is easily at the top of my list. Whether you physically write them out on a piece of paper or you type them and print them out, actually writing out your goals is essential. This allows you to visualize what it is you want to accomplish. Not only should you write out your goals, you should also keep them close by. Hang these goals up in your studio, your office, your bedroom, keep them on your desk, or wherever you will consistently be seeing these goals. This gives you a constant reminder of what it is you are going to achieve. 

Set Realistic Goals 

Set realistic goals for yourself. Realistic, however, should not be confused with easy. This simply means to not set goals that you know are either not achievable or that you are not going to put in an effort to achieve. By all means, reach for the stars and dream your wildest dreams, but you want to be able to actually achieve the goals that you write down for the coming year.

Goals Do Not Need To Be Numerical

Goals do not always need to be numerical and most of them probably shouldn’t be. Rather than setting a goal for yourself to “gain 1,000 new followers on Instagram”, maybe set a goal to increase your fan base by a significant amount. Or maybe set a goal for yourself to increase the engagement on your social media. The same goes for streams. Don’t set a goal for yourself to “get 10,000 streams on a song on Spotify”, but instead maybe set a goal to drive more listeners to your Spotify through playlisting, social media, etc. Numerical goals aren’t a bad thing, just be cautious as to what you are really trying to achieve through those goals. 

Emphasize the How

At the same level of importance of what goals you want to achieve, is including how you are going to achieve them. It is great to set a goal of “finish one song a week”, but how are you going to get there? What kind of time are you going to allocate to actually finishing those songs? What resources are necessary for you to achieve that? Not only including but also emphasizing how you are going to achieve your goals will lead you one step closer to your desired destination. 

Set Personal Goals 

The last tip in this list is to set personal goals for yourself. Set great goals for yourself to achieve within your hobby or professional career, but make sure you are growing as an individual as well. As artists, our art is a direct representation of yourself. Make sure you are taking care of yourself and also pushing yourself to become the best version of you. While we should always be striving to become better, the new year is a great way to start fresh and add in some extra motivation to grow. 

The goals that you set for yourself throughout the year are something you should reference often. However, there is no shame in shifting your goals throughout or even setting new mid-year goals. GuitarForProducers was an idea that started in the middle of quarantine here in the US. It started as a side project to allocate some of my extra time to doing something I loved to do, playing the guitar. This was not something that was specifically on my list of goals for 2020, but it quickly grew into another passion and has now become something I’ve been putting my entire focus into for the last few months and it is definitely something I am setting a lot of goals for in 2021. 

With 2020 being one of the darkest years for many people all around the world, there is no better time to start fresh and get some extra motivation going into the new year to grow as artists and individuals and make our goals a reality. 

Cheers to a new year and reaching for the stars. Don’t limit yourself or question what you are capable of. Be proud of yourself for simply making it through one of the darkest years yet - Let’s make 2021 a great year.