What’s Your “North Star” In Music?

Do you know what your North Star is in music?

If you’ve ever suffered from shiny object syndrome or chasing squirrels and going down YouTube rabbit holes, or you found that your motivation for music goes up and down like a rollercoaster week by week, then I want to share one solution that’s been proven by thousands upon thousands of musicians to fix all of those problems and more in as little as five minutes.

So on an episode earlier this week, I was talking about this new painting in my office. If you’re watching the video version, you can see I’m pointing to this Abbey Road interpretation abstract art.

And it was what inspired me to talk about Beatles Month the other day. And if you didn’t see that episode, I’ll put a link in the shownotes. You can go back and check it out, but there’s actually a story behind this one, too.

If you see this one, and I know a couple of members of the team figured out what it was and why it was there, I’d love to know if you also spotted it and realized why I would hang that particular painting on my wall. And initially when I hung it, I similarly got inspired to talk to you guys about something.

And I was initially going to share a video from inside our Living Music program, which is related to it. But on reflection, I know that so many of you that tune into Musicality Now are real Musical U diehards! You know, a lot of our keenest members, a lot of those who’ve been listening or watching for years upon years, and that video from Living Music is great for explaining the exercise I want to share with you today, but I wanted to go one step further, so I decided to share something else.

And this is a clip from a panel masterclass we did at Musical U a couple of years back, where we actually had each member of the team share their one top tip for improving your musicality. And it was a really cool session.

I loved hearing from everyone in the variety of answers they had. And this is what I shared during that session. I presented this exercise that’s all around your North Star in music and gave eight tips.

And so if you’ve come across this exercise before, if it’s familiar, then the eight tips should still be super useful for you – IF you put it into use. So this is one where you definitely want to listen and then actually go away and do something with it. So here we go into our panel masterclass.

And for context, I had just talked a bit about Musical U, who we are, what we do, our vision and our mission. And then this was the first of the tips that the team shared. Here we go.

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I thought long and hard about what I wanted to share on the call today, and you’re going to hear a range of tips from everyone on the team. But having set that context for what we do at Musical U and this movement you are now a part of, whether you’ve been with us a few days, a few months, or a few years, I thought about doing something very specific and new and niche and tactical. Because, as we said, there’s a lot of familiar faces and it’s wonderful.

And some of you have heard from me throughout the Living Music program, in podcast episodes, on past masterclasses, all kinds of places. You’ve had emails from me, maybe every day for years, and so it was tempting to do something that I knew you wouldn’t have heard from me before.

But at the end of the day, when I thought about what I could share, that would be most impactful, most helpful for the greatest number of people, there was really only one candidate. And I’m almost tempted to have you guess! I’m going to ask you to guess in the chat what you think I’m going to share as my top tip for your musicality, we could play “Christopher Cliches” bingo.

“Beginner’s mind”, very good guess from Barnaby and Jeannie.

“Practice music every day”. Also, good answers.

“Active listening”. This is great. I’m just going to invite each of you up and you can present my tip for me!

These are all wonderful options.

“Universal potential”, one of our pillar beliefs.

Yep. “Growth mindset”. “Just listen to music”. “You can do it”. Love it.

Good, okay, I’m not feeling too cliche after all!

So I’m going to share something that I believe is possibly the most useful thing you can do for your musical life.

And it’s something we’ve been using since the outset of Musical U in 2015, when we first launched the membership and opened the doors and had people come in and start training with us in the membership site. It’s an exercise we call the Big Picture Vision exercise.

And I’m sure a lot of you, yeah, I can see a lot of you now, nodding in recognition. I would like to think an awful lot of you on the call today have done this exercise. If you’ve been a member or you’ve been in Living Music, this should be familiar to you. But I wanted to share it today for a couple of reasons.

Reason number one is, I think it is the thing which makes everything else easier and without which everything else is much more frustrating and confusing than it needs to be.

And the second reason is that it’s one of these things, like beginner’s mind and some of the other suggestions today that it’s really easy to lose sight of, you’re like,” yeah, I did that. Learned about that. Fine.” You move on.

And actually, the value of it, the power of it, is in keeping it front of mind, day after day, week after week, month after month.

So if this is familiar to you, I just encourage you to listen afresh and ask whether you have been making full use of what this can do for you.

And if it’s new to you, this is something I’d highly encourage you to get onto right away. So our Big Picture Vision exercise here at Musical U is very simple. It’s to answer one question about your musical life.

And the question is: If you were to imagine yourself five years in the future and everything has gone perfectly with your musical life, so you’re going to pretend you’re not a cynical, skeptical adult, as some of us may have ended up, you’re going to suspend all disbelief and you’re going to imagine that there’s been no struggling, no frustration, no failures, no setbacks. It’s just been kind of a dream. Five years, everything’s magically clicked into place.

What would your musical life look like?

And a lot of people who come to us at Musical U, they’ve literally never considered that. They’ve never asked themselves that question, they’ve never dreamed of into the future like that.

But if you start to think about, you know, what instruments would you like to play, what style of music would you like to play, what kind of performing would you like to do or collaborating? What kind of creative things would you like to do? And really flesh out a description of that ideal musical life.

This is going to do a few things for you, and so I’d like to share a little bit about why this is so powerful. And then I’ve got, I think, eight tips that can help you really make the most of this.

So why is this powerful? Well, like I said, some people have never done this before.

And I always come back to this quote from Alice in Wonderland, where Alice is talking to the Cheshire Cat in the Tulgey Wood. And Alice is lost at this point. She’s trying to find her way to the Red Queen’s palace and trying to find her way home, really.

And she says to the Cheshire Cat, I wonder if you could tell me which way to go? And the Cheshire Cat says “where are you trying to get to?” And Alice says “well, I really don’t mind…” And the Cheshire cat says “well, then it really doesn’t matter which way you go”.

And a lot of musicians are like that! They’re wandering and they keep trying to find their way, but they haven’t really figured out their destination.

And so it’s constantly frustrating and confusing which direction they should be going. What courses to do, what teacher to learn with, should they try another instrument? Should they just focus on this? Should they practice this way? And without that destination in mind, without a Big Picture Vision as your kind of North Star, you’re kind of doomed to wander endlessly like that. So having that North Star is incredibly powerful.

The second reason is it’s amazing for motivation. So what I found, like, I’ve had the real honour of talking in recent weeks with some people who applied for the Next Level coaching program, some of whom I see on the call today. And something that kept coming up was that our motivation, our passion for music can wax and wane, right? Like, with all the best intentions, sometimes you wake up and you’re just not up for practicing, or sometimes a couple of weeks passed and you’ve kind of fallen off the wagon.

But the one thing which never really wavers is your Big Picture Vision, because that literally encapsulates what it is you’re most passionate about. And so having that touchstone, you can keep coming back to where if you’re not motivated to practice, if you read through your Big Picture Vision and you remind yourself, oh, yeah, this is why I care. This is why I’m doing it. This is what’s possible for me and where I want to get to.

It’s an incredible way to just kickstart your motivation again and again. Because whatever might be going on this day, this week, this month, that Big Picture Vision can continually re-spark that passion for you.

And the third really powerful thing about it is that we live in the age of YouTube and shiny object syndrome, and it’s so easy to let what is a really good thing, our passion, become scatterbrained enthusiasm in every direction. And I’m as guilty of it as anyone, to be clear! But those shiny objects can prevent us from actually making real progress.

And so I love the Big Picture Vision for providing a kind of filter for that, where you can ask yourself, like, is this actually aligned with where I want to go? Am I chasing down a rabbit hole just because I’m kind of addicted to the YouTube roulette? Or is this feeding me something that will lead me down the path I want to be going? So once you’re clear on that North Star it becomes a lot easier to stay focused and rule out things that are going to be a distraction or pure entertainment without actually moving you forwards.

So that is why I feel this is so powerful and why we’ve seen it be so powerful over the years at Musical U.

And we’ve learned a lot about what makes it work well and what makes it not work so well. So I did want to share some tips, and if you’ve done this before, I hope these tips will be really useful for you to kind of power up your Big Picture Vision and help you get even more from it in the future.

The first tip is that written is best.

So hopefully, as I’ve been talking, I can see some of you jotting down notes, in fact. But hopefully, as I’ve been talking, you’ve at least been thinking – Skip, nice, “whole clipperboard full!” Amazing.

Hopefully you’ve been starting to get some ideas and start that little bit of your mind dreaming into the future. But really take even just five minutes, sit down with your computer or a pen and paper and write down as much as you can.

I’m a big fan of kind of stream of consciousness writing. Just like, don’t have the inner editor going, just write and write and write and sort it out later. And that can be amazing for capturing it because when it’s in your head, it’s always fuzzy, you go around in circles. As soon as you start writing it down, A. it makes it clearer and B. it makes it more real and you start to actually see that thing as being possible for you. So written tends to be best.

The second tip is a fairly recent learning for me where I’ve been working with some people on their Big Picture Visions.

And you may or may not, may or may not know this about me, but I’m a computer science by background guy. I’m very analytical, very left brain, I guess, and my default is to be very factual. And what I found is that with the Big Picture Vision, people fall into two categories.

One is that analytical category, and you’re all about the facts and the specifics and the details. And the other category are the more kind of, you know, stereotypically creative or artistic or emotion driven right brain people. And you tend to default to talking a lot about how it’s going to feel and how amazing it’s going to be and how fulfilling it’s going to be without any of the specifics.

And I can see some head nods and head shaking. You all identify with one of those, I’m sure!

Whichever group you are, try and do a little bit of the other one.

So I’ve seen it be super powerful, if you are analytical, just spend a little bit of time thinking about how it’s going to feel to accomplish those things. Or if you’re all about the emotions, try and pinpoint a few of the details and it just really magnifies the power of that Big Picture Vision for you if you can make it a bit of both.

The third tip is make it a living document.

This isn’t something that’s “one and done”. Like I said at the beginning, it’s something to keep coming back to and keep front of mind in the members site. It’s why we try and put it right there in front of you, inside the Living Music seasons, for example. Because not only do you want to keep reminding yourself of it, I would encourage you to feel free to edit it as often as you want.

So it probably will stay mostly the same because it’s meant to capture your true yearning, that true destination. But at the same time, we’re constantly learning, it is a journey, things are going to change, priorities are going to shift, and you’re going to make progress towards it.

So it’s perfectly okay to update it and revise it and think things through again. So do let it be a living document.

The fourth is rolled into that one: keep it front of mind.

I know a lot of you have printed it out and you have it in your music practice area, which is fantastic. But wherever you can put it that you’ll spot it and be reminded of it, and then you kind of get that inadvertent motivation boost and that prompt to revisit it and re-evaluate.

That’s a really powerful way to make the most of it.

Tip number five of eight: Shoot for the moon.

This is something where it is about dreaming and defining the ideal future. A lot of us tend to be cautious and timid when doing goal-setting, but I love that quote that if you shoot for the moon, even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars, right?

So set your ambitions high. It’ll drive you forwards more effectively, it’ll motivate you more effectively, and it’ll help make sure that wherever you do get to exceeds your expectations that you would otherwise have.

Number six: please don’t be afraid to share it.

I know if you’re a long-standing member of the community, you know that Musical U is a safe space for doing that. No one will ever tear you down or criticize or discourage you.

It’s a very friendly and supportive community. You can feel very comfortable sharing even that very ambitious Big Picture Vision, and you’ll get nothing but encouragement and support. And even if you just share it with friends and family, that can be great for accountability and again, for making it real for you.

Number seven, I hesitated over whether to share this one, but: I would advise you to be ruthless, if you can.

And it comes back to that shiny object syndrome. Like, once you’re clear on that North Star, really trust it and be ruthless about what does not fit it.

A lot of us are coming with a lot of baggage as to what we “should” do in music and how music learning is “meant” to go and what practice “should” look like. You can use your Big Picture Vision again as a filter and just be very ruthless. “Nope, that’s not for me.” “I’m not interested in that because it’s not about where I’m trying to get to”. That is perfectly okay.

And again, it’s really empowering to have that concrete definition. “This is what matters to me. All that other stuff can wait, or I can ignore it, and that’s perfectly fine”.

And finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t throw in the last tip, which is to encourage you to please ask for help.

Hopefully you know, we’re very friendly and personal here on the musical U team. Our team is here, and if you want help figuring out your Big Picture Vision, or you want help figuring out how to pursue it, or if something fits with it, our team will know, we understand it, we’re happy to help with it. And Musical U is very much a place where you can reach out to other members of the community, or indeed the team, and we’ll be more than happy to help you figure out how to make the most of your Big Picture Vision.

So that’s my tips for you. I hope that for those of you who are familiar with the exercise, that refreshed it for you and added some spice to it.

And I hope that if it’s new to you, you will take very seriously my encouragement to go away after this call, take five minutes and jot down your first draft of your Big Picture Vision, because it just might be the most important thing you can do.

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So there you have it – the Cheshire Cat inspired Big Picture Vision exercise! As well as a range of tips to amp up its effectiveness.

And I was so impressed a couple of weeks ago, I did the live training yourmusicalcore.com, that live training, and I was so impressed because a lot of the people on that call were our devotees, and I knew for a fact they had done that exercise before. But as part of that training, we went through it together and every single one of them had heads down writing afresh. And it just really validated the power of writing it, returning to it, and constantly keeping it front of mind because they’ve seen the power of it, they’ve seen the impact it can have, and they really value what it can do for them.

I did want to throw in one other thing because I mentioned at the start I was going to share a video from our Living Music program where I present this exercise. And there was one thing I said in that one that I didn’t say in this, which is to clarify: this is not goal setting.

So there’s a big difference between a vision and a goal.

And one thing that sometimes trips people up with the Big Picture Vision is they see it as goal setting, and that immediately makes them tense up and get anxious and worry about the how. “How will I do this?” So you really need to see it as a vision. This is just describing illustrating the future you wish to get to. And then all of the goal setting and planning can follow on from that. But when you’re working on your Big Picture Vision, just really stay in that space of imagining and suspending all disbelief and dreaming into what could be possible for you.

I’ll be back tomorrow with our next Meet The Team interview. I’m excited to have Next Level coach Camilo Suarez joining me for that tomorrow.

And then on Saturday we’ll have our next Coaches Corner episode. Saturday is also our monthly masterclass for members, super exciting, this time with Dr. Molly Gebrian on the topic of “what musicians can learn about practicing from current brain research”.

So I can’t wait for that one. And I look forward to seeing many of you with me there on Saturday. Til next time, cheers!

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