If you want to achieve anything of significance, you must work on it consistently.

But how is consistency achieved? How can you discipline yourself to work on your most important tasks daily?

In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I share the importance of routine and how to develop one that helps you move quicker towards your goals.

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Podcast Highlights:

00:14 – Developing an effective routine and how to achieve consistency

00:53 – I don’t have the perfect routine but I’m working on it

01:26 – Your routine should change based on your goals

01:43 – Steps you can take towards building your personal routine

01:56 – #1: Determine what your goals are

02:17 – #2: Understand what your goals will require of you

02:53 – #3: Plan your ideal week

03:38 – #4: Stick to your plan

04:11 – Routine will help you build consistency, momentum, and traction

Transcription:

Thanks for joining me. Today I wanted to talk about developing an effective routine. Now, you may have heard me talk about consistency quite a bit on the podcast, as well as in my book, The New Music Industry. I do believe consistency is important, but you may be left with this question: “How do I achieve consistency?”

Well, it is achieved through routine. Now, routine is something that sounds relatively commonplace but it actually requires quite a bit of self-discipline to execute. Sticking to a routine allows you to find your groove within it, and to achieve more because you’ll be doing tasks daily instead of whenever you feel like it or whenever you have the free time to do them.

I admit that I don’t have the perfect routine right now for reasons I’ve already shared with you in the last few podcast episodes, but it’s still something I like to use as a tool.

Earlier this year, I had a very regular routine of going to bed at 1:00 AM and waking up at 9:00 AM. This is something that worked well for me with all the assignments that I had. When summer came along, this became unsustainable, because there’s a major difference between the daylight we get here in Canada between summer and winter.

So, in a way I’m kind of finding a new routine based on what I’m trying to accomplish in the next few months. I think this is an important point for you to understand. Your routine should change based on your goals and what’s required of you. You shouldn’t just stick to a routine that you’ve already established, unless it’s getting you to where you want to go right now. Ensure that your routine supports you. Don’t become a slave to the routine.

Here are few concrete steps you can take towards building your personal routine, because I can’t tell you what’s going to be most effective for you. You must determine that based on what you’re trying to accomplish.

Number one. Determine what your goals are if you aren’t clear on them already. You can certainly skip this step if you know what your goals are for the next year.

But without knowing what you’re aiming for, you can’t develop an effective routine around it. If you don’t have goals, it’s like starting a journey without a destination in mind. Yes, if you keep going, you’ll end up somewhere, but it may not be where you want to end up.

Without knowing what you’re aiming for, you can’t develop a routine around it.Click To Tweet

Number two. Take the time to understand what these goals will require of you. What will it take to achieve these goals? What will you need in terms of connections, resources, time, and so on?

Time is obviously the most important consideration here as it pertains to creating your routine. I find setting goals is a bit of an art form and rarely if ever can we set them perfectly, because we don’t know how much time or effort it’s going to take to reach those goals.

So, the better you understand what it’s going to take to achieve your goals, and the better you understand yourself,