Accomplishing Your Singing Goals
As singers we always set goals for ourselves – certain standards that we want to reach, be it in our practice or performances. And now that this year is slowly coming to an end, you may already be thinking about your new year’s resolutions and which resolutions you’ll set for your vocal improvement. So, I have this idea: how about we stop waiting for the new year to start working towards our goals and dreams and just start doing it right now? Think of it as setting an “end of year resolution”. And this resolution could be, to form a daily vocalizing habit, by the time 2020 comes around. Now, in most scenarios, working towards a goal is a long term project, and there are a few things that can help you to actually get the work done.
1: SET SPECIFIC GOALS! “Spend more time vocalizing” may be your ultimate goal, but you’ll need to be more specific to really get going. For example, write down “Spend minimum 20 minutes a day mindfully vocalizing.”, “Learn 1 new song every week.” Or maybe even “Sign up for voice lessons.” This gives you specific things to work on. And it makes great checklists to keep you up to date with your process. So I want to make sure that I get a daily session in the vocal gym and performance wise. So for this December, my specific goal is, to prepare my 25 favorite Christmas songs and post a cover on my Instagram, Facebook and Twitter each day from December 1st to December 25th. This means I have to warm up, work on the songs and perform them. Which adds up to at least 60 minutes vocal training a day.
2: WRITE IT DOWN! In order to accomplish the goals we set for ourselves, it’s important to write them down. This helps you remember what exactly the intention was, and it can also be a motivation, to keep yourself accountable. You can make lists and check them off on your calendar every day, or you could tell a friend about your goals and have them check up on you. Or maybe you can go all out as I just did in step 1 and announce your goal publicly. This way, I am inviting every single one of you to keep me accountable.
3: FIND YOUR WHY! Whenever we start working on a long term project, it’s important to find a WHY. This will help you to keep going in times when you don’t see any improvement or just don’t feel like making time for these things anymore. In my case, for example, singing has always been a coping mechanism. No matter what life throws at me – as soon as I step into the vocal gym, I can let go of it and just focus on one single task – vocalizing – for a while. Many voice lessons and choir rehearsals I’ve been to felt like therapy and I just felt more at ease afterwards. So, for me, one VERY good reason to vocalize every single day, is simply, that it helps me with my mental health. It gives me confidence, it makes me happy and it give me a way to bring positivity into other people’s lives.
4: BE KIND. ESPECIALLY TO YOURSELF! We always want to be kind to others… But our mind is a very powerful thing. If we are not kind to ourselves, our body feels that and reacts to that. What I’m trying to say, is: empower yourself. Speak wisely and kindly to yourself. You’re allowed to compliment yourself. You’re allowed to acknowledge if you’re good at something, or if you see improvement in certain parts. Do that! Celebrate your success. And, forgive yourself for failures. So… you skipped a day of vocalizing? Don’t worry. You didn’t ruin your process by falling off once. The beautiful thing about life is, that every single day is a chance to start all over again, so, if you didn’t vocalize yesterday, there’s no way to change that. But you can go ahead and make sure to vocalize today. Forgive yourself. You deserve a second chance… or maybe it’s the 200th time you’re starting over? It doesn’t matter. In the end, this whole thing is a journey. You’ll eventually learn, that you’re not satisfied when you’re able to sing that one note, you always wanted to, because now there’s more that you want to accomplish. And this is the beauty of singing and of life in general: it’s about the journey. After almost 23 years of life, especially these last 5 years have taught me, that you’ll get knocked down… over and over again. But what I’m starting to see, is, that the most successful people are those, who mastered the art of getting back up and continuing to work hard for what they believe in.
5: ENJOY! You started singing because you love it, right? So, keep that up. Make your training fun. Challenge yourself with a variety of exercises. Choose songs you love… but you may want to explore into completely new Genres… for the fun of it. What’s wrong with stepping out of your vocal comfort zone and trying something new? Perform! Appreciate every chance you get to make use of your beautiful unique instrument. And… SHINE!