Jeff Nelsen and Deanna Swoboda on Setting Goals

A new publication just out is The Savvy Musician by David Cutler. In it he presents hornist Jeff Nelsen (Canadian Brass/Indiana University) as one of his examples on the topic of mapping goals. Nelsen maintains three lists. His “Master To Do List” is online as a Google document that according to Cutler 

…currently catalogues 950 life ambitions. The “To Do Now List” contains non-urgent but time sensitive objectives, and is stored in a word processing document on his desktop. Finally, he e-mails himself the “To Do ASAP List” each evening, outlining tasks that should be completed the next day.

Yet even with this meticulous planning, Jeff is always open to unexpected opportunities, even if it means a radical change in direction…. However, when pondering how he has done with the pursuit of goals, he asks two questions: “1) did I learn, and 2) did I love well?” Coupled with, “will this matter a year from now?” these inquiries help him focus on what is truly important and which steps to take next.

There is a full review of this book by Ron Spigelman that has just been posted to the Sticks and Drones site, which contains a number of other quotes from this very interesting publication. The Savvy Musician is really worth checking out and could easily be used as a text for a college level class on being an entrepreneur in music.

The comments from Jeff Nelsen about mapping out goals tie in closely with a great presentation yesterday to the Arizona State University Brass Area class with guest Deanna Swoboda, an ASU DMA tuba graduate who now serves on the faculty of Western Michigan University. She has certainly set a number of goals for herself over the years and has met many of them, having toured six years with the Dallas Brass, the development of educational programs and products such as her Summit CD Deanna’s Wonderland, etc. One point she made in her session was to think big; set goals out in the future with things you would like to do and things that you feel that your interests and talents could lead you toward. But always be ready, that phone call could come and lead you in a new direction at any time. Her session was great, I hope that she has the opportunity to present other sessions of this type. It will be really hard to top this Brass Area session later in the semester.

Back on the topic of setting goals, I have made lists for years. Maybe not as intensely as described above by Jeff Nelsen and usually on paper, but it has been something that keeps me organized in the short and long term. After the session with Deanna Swoboda I went home and found my collection of lists, which includes outlines of books yet to be written, career goals, etc. I was able to find one pair of lists I was looking for which are from 1999. The first list was set up with the idea of trying to get a better job. Even at the time I know I did not feel comfortable with the mindset behind the list (and I liked my job then, too), so I made another list trying to define my long term goals with the idea that I wanted to use my God given skills and opportunities to their fullest. The lists are actually very similar but the second had a much better mindset behind it.

The moral of this post being to set some goals long and short term, figure out the unique things you can do related to your interests and opportunities, and work on ways to get you closer to those goals.