So, I was all fired up about having finally set some concrete goals, ready to dig in to those pieces and my scales and focus… and now it’s after 11:00 two days later and I haven’t picked up my horn. Hmm, what happened?
When I set out on this little “practice rehab” journey, I was prepared to face some frustration, and I had a pretty good idea that I’d need to formalize my goals more so than I had when I was active. What I’m realizing, though, is the extent to which I need to rethink some of the priorities in my life so that I can get back on the track I want to be on.
Ten years ago, saxophone was an automatic priority. My entire life revolved around playing and studying saxophone. I studied music theory, history, education, saxophone literature, instrumental pedagogy. I paid my bills in part by teaching saxophone, and the rest were covered by a pretty crummy job managing at a McDonald’s in Bloomington. But once I was out of that environment, other priorities started to creep in — my wife, pets, my kids, a career, a house, more kids. Five months ago, when I decided to start getting back into playing, I either hadn’t thought through or didn’t fully understand how challenging it would be to re-prioritize all these things to create the time I need to practice.
Goals are a wonderful thing to have. So are things like motivation, desire and talent. But before those goals can be achieved, all the other “stuff” has to be prioritized. Many of the priorities I have in my life are out of my control. I can’t change the fact that I have to work to pay the bills. I can’t directly control the needs of my family. One of the best resources I have come across when it comes to setting priorities and achieving goals are some of Steven Covey’s books. The two that come to my mind are “The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People” and “First things First”. He talks a lot about differences between the urgent tasks we deal with versus the important ones. I don’t want to get into a review of his books — you’re free to read those on your own. This is a great over-simplification, but underlying all he has to say is the idea that it is very easy to get trapped by the urgent priorities — the emergencies — and to get caught in a vicious cycle of constantly putting out fires, thereby loosing sight of what is truly important. If the emergencies are pushed aside for at least part of the day to focus on what is truly important, not only do we have a better chance of achieving our goals, but the urgent tasks start to occupy less of our time. Simply put, it’s the idea of responding on a proactive basis rather than a reactive basis. I’m not really sure exactly where I’m going with this, other than that I know I’m in a very reactive space right now, which in turn means the emergenices are keeping me away from my saxophone. Something to think about….
