Without vision, it’s difficult to be clear on your future. Many of the independent musicians I’ve had the pleasure of speaking with don’t seem to have any vision. I can usually tell that from their character and attitudes towards their music, or their answer to my question, “Where do you see your music career in five or ten years?”

Vision isn’t just about thinking long term. It’s about what you want your music to do to you, your band members and your audiences. Vision is about a future that’s filled with hope and promise for you and your fans. Vision allows your music career to pan out like a story that you’ll be able to piece together at the end of your life (if it ends in this lifetime). Vision is what Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi and Anita Roddick had, all in their own unique ways. Vision is about how you’ll leave your mark on the world, your footprint, your reason for living.

Character is about your attitude towards your music. It’s about belief in your vision through what you do every single day. It’s how you live your life and how you deal with opportunities. When you’re clear on what you and your music represent, your character will not be influenced by the people and peers around you.

For me, my music career has always been a long term thing. I am fortunate to do the work I do as a music business consultant that it’s become much more exciting and fun for me than my playing career itself. But I still play. I just don’t go after recording stuff, bands and gigs as some may. I have a clear vision of what I want for my Tabla career that I can make clear decisions on who I say ‘yes’ to and who I say ‘no’ to.

We all have different visions that are unique to our music and unique to who we are. Our vision is created through our upbringing and the experiences we’ve already had in our lives.  Your character is a reflection of what you want to achieve and the challenges you’re working to overcome, based on what your vision is.

Whenever I take on staff in my team, it’s important that they have a vision and character that excites them and the people around them. That comes from me, the leader, having a compelling vision myself. The same will go for you and the team you build around you.

Many musicians I speak to work a day job as well as trying to pursue their music career. One of the biggest challenges they are faced with is “not enough time to get everything done”. As an independent musician, you’re a music business owner. If you don’t already believe and understand that, I think that’s the first place to start.

Having a vision ensures that you will not jump around from strategy to strategy, idea to idea and product to product. Once you find a proven path, with proven case studies, then you can simply follow it. There are only 86,400 seconds a day. You can’t buy more time, and what you do with your time determines your income. Your vision and character helps determine what you do with your time.

One of the first personal development books I ever read was ‘The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People’ (see Wiki summary) by Stephen Covey. His second habit, “Start with the end in mind” is all about creating a vision. Derek Sivers gave this book a mention too. 

Create some time in your life to think about your vision. Clear your space and just think about where you want your music to go, what you want it to achieve and how you want to leave a legacy. These things make up your vision. Then the attitudes that these create for you are your character, but it’s not something you force, it’s something you live. 

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