Gospel Industry Tip Of The Week 8/29/11
Measure Your Progress
One of the great casualties in the battle to accomplish your dream is proper perspective. For many of us, once we’ve committed to our vision, we can become so focused on the final destination that we lose all sense of how far we’ve come.
This week, I’d like you to do yourself a favor. Instead of checking off another item on your career aspirations “to do” list, please take some time to measure your progress. Even if you can’t pull sales figures for your music yet, or calculate a significant amount of income earned through your artistry this year, there are several ways to mark your development.
To get you started, here are three key forms of measurement:
Measurement #1: Mark your creative growth.
One of the easiest ways to assess your creative growth is to review your earlier work. Pull out your old tracks, watch videos of your old performances, and review your early lyrics. Compare those pieces to your most recent work. Do you see how far you’ve come?
While you may be tempted to be embarrassed by the earliest steps in your journey, resist that urge. It’s a wonderful thing to see the great strides you’ve made toward becoming a mature artist, songwriter, and minister.
There’s a reason why great athletes review tapes of their games. Not only does it allow you to see your growth in concrete ways, it enables you to plot a course for future improvement.
Measurement #2: Assess your quality of impact.
Too often we measure our impact by quantity—-the size of the audience, the number of Retweets, the number of listens and downloads—-rather than the quality of impact. How many messages have you received from individuals who were encouraged or enlightened by your ministry?
Wherever possible in your efforts, build in opportunities for your “followers” to contact you. There are few greater encouragements during a difficult week in your ministry, than to receive an email, tweet, or message from someone letting you know how you’ve blessed them.
You’d be surprised how even one message from someone who has been touched by your efforts can inspire you to dig in deeper and hang in there a little longer. Save those messages, pray for those individuals, and show gratitude to the Lord for allowing you to catch a glimpse of the work He’s doing through you.
Measurement #3: Refer to your vision statement.
By now you know how much I believe in the principle of developing mission statements and writing down the elements of your vision. There is no greater way I know to make a God-given dream concrete, than to create a written record.
Vision statements empower us to track our progress. By returning to the foundation of our dream, we are able to confirm the basis for decisions we’ve made, refocus upcoming steps, and reflect upon the passion that we possessed in the earliest days of our journey.
A vision statement is a great witness, affirming us in our present, pointing us toward our future.
To be fully committed to your craft requires a certain narrowness of focus. Nevertheless, we must build time into our schedules to reflect upon our efforts. Even the most diligent worker will grow weary without positive evaluation and encouragement. So, stop for a moment to measure your progress.
Published: August 29, 2011 | 0 Comments
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