For a while now, I have been working on the topic of vision. In music, business, or any other area of life, envisioning the future you want is the first and most critical step towards actually finding your way there.

I have previously talked here about the what, why, how, when and where of creating and achieving your vision. In Time For My Music, my online programme for emerging female musicians, we have been working on answering those questions too. Now that we’re on the last quarter of the year, with colder and shorter days heralding the arrival of Christmas, most of us tend to think of January as the perfect moment to start working on things like this. However, what if October was a better starting point?

Dr. Jamie, known online as The Productivity Psychologist, makes a strong case in favour of this idea in the following video:

The argument I like the most is having these 90 days until New Year’s Eve to experiment and gather little wins that will improve our self-efficacy, which is the belief we have in our own ability to overcome challenges and master skills. The period between October and December can be a sandbox to test and try methods, ideas and strategies, fine-tune them, and face January more knowledgeable and confident. It’s less pressure overall, and way more benefits!

If you have any goals regarding the music business that you’d like to kickstart now, you can head to my education website Success Beyond The Score. There, you will find tons of resources, from blog articles, to my podcast, to booklets and, soon, live e-courses and coaching sessions I am in the process of developing. If you know the fundamentals of sax and want to become a master, I offer sax lessons too!