It’s a new year! A time when we generally like to evaluate what is going well in our lives, look at what areas need improvement, and set goals for new things we would like to accomplish. This may be something you are doing, so today I would like to post briefly about the vision board tool and ways your children can apply this to their music education.
To Set Up a Vision Board
Simply designate some wall space as a place to post pictures and notes of your goals, dreams, and desires. For this step, it is important for the space to have boundaries or a border and for the pictures to be easily removable so that you can take them off when you accomplish them and post new ones. I like to keep the pictures I take off in a binder or notebook as a record and reminder of all the things I have accomplished! Also, having the pictures on your phone is not as effective as something physically tangible in your home.
Then, spend a couple minutes everyday looking at the items you’ve posted. The idea is to remember what you are working towards, brainstorm ideas of ways you can accomplish it, and imagine what it will feel like to have or accomplish each goal!
Now for Setting the Goals
These goals can be really short term, for example a skill on your assignment or a short section of your music you want to pass off this week in your assignment. Maybe it’s a practice goal and you want to see if you can do it for one or two weeks or a month. It might be a little longer range goal - something that will take several weeks to accomplish or something to have accomplished by the end of the school year. Some examples might be a song or number of songs you want to have learned, perhaps a specific number of scales you want to be able to play, or a skill you want to have mastered. It could also be a speed goal like how quickly you can name the notes on the staff or know which key a song is in.
Speaking of practice goals, you might be having challenges with cheerfulness during practice time. First of all, I will be posting a couple of Very helpful and insightful articles about this specific topic later this month. But until then, you might choose to set a goal such as practice cheerfully for one week or for three days consecutively.
Remember, the small goals and small successes count! They are the stepping stones to accomplishing the bigger goals, dreams, and successes!!