Don’t panic!
I know that whenever I hear the word discipline, I usually think of a drill sergeant standing over a soldier yelling,”Fifty more push ups!”
Relax. We can hold off on boot camp for the time being . . .
For me discipline is deciding to do something that isn’t always immediately rewarding and then following through with it. Kind of like cleaning your room before you mom asks you too, because you told yourself that you would.
Sometimes we get side tracked. That’s just what happens! I know it – you know it. We all begin with good intentions, but somehow we always enable ourselves to have a piece of chocolate cake at midnight, or a beer with friends when we need to be doing our taxes.
I think that a big reason for not following through with what we set out to do is that we forget to set ourselves up for success. We don’t want to have the chocolate cake, but it’s sitting there in our fridge just calling out to be eaten! The same goes with our art.
Do you think you would be a better songwriter is you spent an hour EVERY day writing songs? Of course you would. We would be better at anything if we were consistent at doing it every day. This brings me to priorities.
There are only so many hours in each day. Try this: For a week, jot down in a notebook how you spend the time of your day. You’ll be amazed at how much time that is wasted! (at least I was).
- 45 minutes to wake, shower, shave, make coffee. . .
- Eat breakfast & clean up 30 minutes . . .
- Check email . . .
After all the things that I needed to do just to function, I found that I had about nine hours left to “do everything else”. (Including make a living). So needless to say, I had to cut some things down and cut some things out entirely.
So what’s your priority? To be a songwriter? A great singer? Shredding guitarist?
Whatever it is to be able to succeed in this biz it’s got to be your biggest priority!
It has got to haunt you at night and wake you in the morning! And if you have that burning passion, and stick with it, you will succeed! It may not be the exact success that you picture, or at the exact time but it will happen.
How could it not?!