What’s the best way to level up the quality of your work?
Sure we want to do the best we can at everything we do, but what if we can’t reach the quality we’re striving for, to the point of giving up on a project, or maybe not starting at all?
Up until the age of around 21, I was obsessed with being perfect. I wanted to be the perfect drummer, with the perfect gig, and to the extreme of wanting to be perfect going into a coffee shop, knowing where everything was and not looking like a fool! It was exhausting and ultimately led to complete debilitation, inaction, and effectively depression.
At the time I was completely obsessed with reading successful musicians’ biographies and trying to find patterns to discover the secret to being a professional drummer. The only running theme I could see was that they were all out playing, a lot, a LOT a lot. So my focus shifted from ‘being perfect’ to just doing it a lot! Playing gigs, doing rehearsals, tours, recording sessions, stage shows, drum clinics, just anything and everything because at that point I realised quantity = quality.
Since that discovery (and putting it into action), the trajectory of my life has changed and now if I decide I want to learn something or be better at it, I just do it a LOT. And I still often surprise myself with how quickly things start progressing.
So how can you apply this to your life?
- Choose a specific goal i.e I want to get better at charting songs so I can play more gigs with more people and expand my network
- Plan: Spend a day getting together a playlist of 30 songs relevant to your niche or genre you want to be in, and every day chart 1 song. It might be hard at first, but trust me when I say it will get easier.
- After each day’s charting, celebrate! But don’t move onto tomorrow’s work until tomorrow.
- When those 30 days are up, celebrate even bigger! Look back and see your progress, take yourself out for a nice meal, a massage, or have a great big yummy donut!
- Repeat this cycle until it feels easy, and almost second nature.
Other examples you could use this concept for are:
- Social media (create 1 post every day)
- Recording (make one recording a day, this could be a song – your own or someone else’s, or something more abstract, every day)
- Videos (record one short clip a day or one song a week)
- Going live (Go live once a week)
If you really want to go to the next level then put all these things online to create a sense of accountability – your ego will hate to look silly so will work harder for you. If you can find a way to leverage your ego, you’re definitely quids in!
As with anything the more you do something, the better you get, so be consistent and record your progress so you can look back and see how well you’re truly doing.
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