Are you a piano teacher with lots of goals but struggle to check them off? Do you have a long list of things you want to do but you just don’t know where to start? With some simple planning tools, you can start making progress on those big goals in as little as 90 days with the Musical Life Planner.
Maybe you want to:
- Revamp your studio policy
- Come up with a marketing strategy for your business
- Plan that practice challenge for your studio
- Learn that piece you’ve been wanting to learn for years
- Notate that composition you’ve been noodling on for ages
- Start that course you purchased months ago
If this is you, then you know just how overwhelming, frustrating, and downright stressful it can be when you just can’t seem to make it happen.
I hear you. I too have struggled with this.
When you struggle to get things done, chances are you don’t have a system, or a clear path to knocking off goals, one at a time, without getting distracted or losing focus.
If you need some guidance, some inspiration, and a step by step process to help you get out of this rut I’ve created a tool to help you out. The Musical Life Planner is a 90 day Goal Planner, purpose-built for piano teachers with growth areas that are specifically relevant to piano teachers:
- Pedagogy
- Practice
- Business
- Passions
- Personal development
Segmenting the areas in your musical life that you want to focus on will help to clarify your varied goals and give your brain the space it needs to prioritise the tasks that need to get done first.
The 90 Day Goal Planning Process
Step 1: Big Picture
The first step in goal planning is to start wide and narrow in. You will need to do an audit of all the stuff in your head to see which goals are really important right now and which ones can be saved for later. In the Musical Life Planner, there are several pages that step you through this process.
You’ll start by doing a brainstorm, or “download” of ALL the goals in your head. And I mean everything.
Now you can map them out into various time frames. Remember, we’re starting wide and narrowing in. So we’re talking 5year goals, 1year goals, 6month goals, 3month goals, 1month goals etc…
The planner will guide you through this process of mapping out your goals.
Step 2: 90 Day Goal Planning
There’s a reason so many goal planning resources out there seem to centre around the 90 day (or 3 month) timeline. It’s because 90 days is long enough to really make a dent in a big goal, but also short enough to help you focus on moving the needle on a single idea, without feeling like you’re wasting your time, or prioritising the wrong idea.
So for your 90 day sprint, you’ll pick 3 Big goals. The Musical Life Planner has the option to segment your goals into one or more of 5 growth zones relevant to piano teachers. These are pedagogy, practice, business, passions, and personal development. These planning pages will help you to figure out the tasks and any potential obstacles you might come up against when moving forward on your goal over the 90 days.
Step 3: Downloads
At the start of every month and every week you have the opportunity to “download” from your brain all the tasks clogging up your head. This gives you the space to see what is needed, and to prioritise, plan, and take action on your big 3 over the current month or week.
Step 4: Schedule it
Once you’ve worked out your key tasks to complete during the week you will write them in the weekly schedule. There are growth zone boxes to remind you of your key tasks, and spaces to write anything you didn’t think of during your task download.
The more specific your scheduling is the more likely you will hold yourself accountable to complete it.
Step 5: Reviews
Reviewing your past actions will help you see what has worked and what hasn’t. You’ll be guided through a review process at the end of each week and each month inside the planner.
This is such a valuable step as it gives us the knowledge to continue to evolve our process and learn from our past actions. Don’t skip this bit.
Step 6: Reflect on your achievements
After you’ve completed your 90 days, if you’ve followed this process, no doubt you’ve made progress. That in itself is an amazing achievement!
So congratulate yourself! Feel good about your achievement knowing that you committed to the task and came out of it with a result.
Next Steps
Don’t stop! Rinse and repeat and keep going.
If you’re a motivated creative piano teacher who needs help combating procrastination, overwhelm, and confusion, then the Musical Life Planner, with its simple guided system, was created with you in mind.
