S.M.A.R.T Goals for Smart Practicing
Here one more about setting goals, since I strongly believe, that efficient and motivating practicing starts with good and S.M.A.R.T. Goals
S.M.A.R.T is a mnemonic acronym coming form project- and personal management. Since somehow Practising is our project, our personal development, I find it very suited to help in defining the goals for our practising.
It stands for:
S – SPECIFIC
M – MEASURABLE
A – ACHIEVABLE
R – RELEVANT
T – TIME-BOUND
Specific
State exactly what your goal is in as much detail as possible. “Get better at playing flute” isn’t a specific goal. „Improve my scales so I can play them all at 80bpm“ is specific as is „Play my study with 100% correct notes“. A music goal of „Join an orchestra and progress to first trumpet“ is better than become a better trumpet player.
Be careful not to use any „not“s or „want“s in the phrasing of your goal. Our subconsciousness does not really understand those. Just try not to think of a blue elephant:)
Measurable
Here many things can come in. E.g: „that‘s why I practise every day“ or „that‘s why I am working today on my major scales“
Anything track-able. Though the most important part is to break down your specific goal into smaller milestones and steps. Like: therefore I have to practice my staccato….practise the fingering combination in bar xyz. This is where the practice log comes in. Take your time and write anything down, what you want to achieve and what is necessary to reach the goal you have. Writing it down, best in a really nice note-book, that you can take with you anywhere, is important, since our memory sometimes likes to trick us.
You can then measure your progress and the time you spent, by ticking of the tasks, that you have written down in your log.
Measuring your progress will help you feel that sense of accomplishment and will fuel your fire as you move toward your larger goal.
Achievable
Check wether your goal is realistic. And whether things are in your hand.
If you just started playing oboe today, winning an audition to the New York Phil next week is highly unlikely. Set goals you can attain in a reasonable amount of time. An experienced teacher can help you with that.
Relevant
This is often overlooked, but it requires some thought. Does it matter what I am doing? For example: If I want to be able to play a certain piece by September, but there is another one, that I have to perform already next week…..
If I want to have faster tonguing, shall I practice the slow movement of Mozart‘s Clarinet Concerto every day for an hour?
This sounds silly, but the question of relevance helps you to focus on things that currently matter for you. And if you are focused on things that matter, and are achievable this R can be also read as Rewarding.
We can also ask ourselves whether achieving this goal is in any form rewarding for me. E.g: I can then join SNYO..or impress everybody in band….
Time-Bound
Always consider the timeframe you want to take to achieve something. You want to give yourself enough time but also not too much time to not get bored or loose focus again. Setting the right time frame needs some practice and you will get better in it over time. You will learn to estimate how much time you need to reach a new goal and maybe even how to push yourself a bit harder to reach your dead-line.
A SMART goal for example could be:
In 14 days we are having band concert with this difficult new piece. In 10 days I will be able to play it correctly. I will start with making sure that I know all the right notes, rhythms and articulations within 3 days from now. I will do tonging exercises for the fast staccato bits in this piece. I will have practiced all the 5 technical difficult passages at least once every day, so that I can after this 10 days spend the rest of the time with becoming more fluent in this piece and revising the other concert pieces.
Feel free to share your SMART goals in the comment section.
It does not matter whether you make music just for fun or strive to become the next Oboe-Super-Hero or Heroine. We all started with the energy of love for music, but learning a musical instrument is a process and like with any long lasting process there is the risk, that we lose track. These 5 principles combined can do a lot for you. Setting smart goals will help you staying on track and will give your love for music more of a compass.
With our ready set goals (written down in our practice log; The goals for the next week(s) and more specific for the next practice session) we can now enter the practice room.