By their very nature, musicians are dreamers. Whether young or old, a person practicing their scales is dreaming of the screaming and applauding fans that will someday bring them fame and fortune of some kind. And this is how it should be. Everyone dreams. Every great story in history revolves around dreams of grandeur and glory. Whether to climb a great mountain or win the heart of the princess, it all starts with a dream.
But not everyone reaches their dreams, and there are often two reasons.
First, many people believe they can have their dreams without changing themselves in the process. This is a fantasy. A dream worth having requires something of or from you. Whether it be work, time, money, passion or whatever, you HAVE to change something in you before you can reach your dreams. People are either unaware of this fact or not willing to change.
Second, people fail to make goals. But it’s actually very simple: a goal is nothing more than a dream with a date attached to it. “I will be ________ by April 22nd.” That’s all a goal is, nothing more and nothing less.
Put 1 and 2 together and you’ll see why most people fail. People would rather avoid adding a date (number 2) because it will require them to actually DO SOMETHING (number 1).
Which leads to my real question for you:
Is your dream worth changing for? Is it something so important, compelling and needed by you and hopefully the world, that you are willing to be and do what it will take to get it? If not, get a bigger dream or a new one. You will be miserable until you do and I speak from experience.
One word of caution: keep it real. When I speak about changing to get your dream, I’m not talking about dumping your friends, leaving your family and selling your soul. I’m talking about dedication, discipline, learning, etc. I’m talking about mature decisions rooted in the reality of day-to-day, year-to-year life. Success is based in reality, and it is about incremental changes followed by the next set of incremental changes.
So I ask you again: is your dream worth changing for? If so, put some dates on it and get to work. And btw, working is usually the change most people are unwilling to make.
