How can artists make their growth goals and dreams of success achievable?

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?’
‘That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,’ said the Cat.
‘I don’t much care where -‘ said Alice.
‘Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,’ said the Cat.
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

In your quest towards success in the music industry, it’s very easy to feel like you’re doing all the right things but are still getting nowhere. We’ve all been there, and it’s an incredibly frustrating feeling. It’s at times like these that it’s important to take a step back and really assess where you are,  where you want to be and – most importantly – how you can control your progression from the former to the latter.

This is where the crux of the matter lies. We can all recognise where we are and say “I want to be more successful”, but I’d argue that that’s more of a desire than a goal and it certainly doesn’t give any indication of methodology.

Let’s take an example and work it through. You could argue that an indicator of success (or, rather, progression towards success) could be that you have a greater online presence. That’s your first goal. Next, make a list of all the things that would signify that you are reaching that goal, such as a greater number of followers across social platforms, a website acting as a central hub for your activities, and so on. At this point, take stock of your current situation – hey, you can’t assess your progress if you don’t know what you’re improving upon!

The ideas you come up with to build your online presence will be your ‘strategies’. Now, to break it down even further, your strategies will require workable tactics to be realistically achieved,and to give yourself a ‘task list’ of sorts that you can refer to in order to work towards your goals.

Here’s an idea of how this could end up looking:

Goal: Grow and improve the profile of the band across all networks.  

Strategies: 

• Acquire 500 new mailing list subscribers 
• Hit 3,000 Facebook fans this year 
• Hit 1,000 Twitter followers this year 
• Hit 5,000 Instagram followers this year 
• Hit 200 YouTube subscribers this year 
• Develop a new website to act as a central hub for all communications 

Current Status: 

• Mailing list of 550 
• Facebook fans – 2,072
• Twitter followers – 708 
• Instagram followers – 4,177 
• YouTube subscribers – 122 

Tactics for Achieving Each Strategy: 

1) Acquire 500 new mailing list subscribers 

• Capture form on new website 
• Physically approaching people at performances with sign-up sheet
• B-Sides/Demo promotion via social media campaign 
• Regular social media pushes 

…etc.

The idea above is that you break down what seems like an abstract idea of what you want into workable elements that you can work on every day to move closer towards your goal. It’s important to note that this is a working document – as you work on your tactics and strategies, you’ll inevitably find that some of them don’t work and you’ll think of new ones along the way. With a regular review of your progress, you’ll develop a plan that works best for you and your individual set of variables.

Good luck, and get to work!