Hopelessly Devoted
There’s always a lot to do when you captain your own ship. (An entrepreneurship, that is.) And it can be easy to wander down side roads or to lose focus. So about a year and a half ago, I took this online class centered on business planning. The format of the course talked about dividing your projects into areas of devotion.
Picking areas to which to devote my time and energy made a world of sense to me. It also felt more fluid and forgiving than the action plans and S.M.A.R.T goals of my past. I liked the idea of areas since I like to focus on one thing at a time, but I also liked the idea of being devoted to the projects on which I worked. As I continue my performing/teaching/improvising career, the language seems more and more apt.
Seven years ago, I worked a 9 to 5 6 job that I liked well enough and was pretty good at. My music life and my work life, however, were very separate from each other, too. And consequently the people in my lives were also pretty separate from each other. Now there’s a lot more crossover among the people and areas of my life – students come to shows and audience members show up at community sings. Collaborators become students and instructors become collaborators. The word co-worker has a whole new meaning. (As my friend A says, I get paid to play with other adults. *smile*)
An outsider might look at my current career and see nothing but chaos, but it makes an improvised kind of sense to me. I move through cycles of productivity and work during “windows of momentum.” Start-ups and cool-downs are part of how it all works. I grow and have breakthroughs. And I get to watch other people grow and have them, too. *smile*
I am devoted to singing and singing, in turn, has showered me with more blessings than I can count. I am thankful for all the singers, players and people that my music-making has brought into my life (including you!).
