Lessons

I believe that at all stages in life, in all areas that being able to know what you want out of an experience and taking steps to achieve that, goal setting is one of the if not the most important skill set you can have in life. I think there are 3 tools that we have that can help us achieve our goals: self efficacy, discipline and creativity. Self efficacy allows us to tackle any challenge that comes our way. This is potentially the most vital of the three skills because if we don’t believe in our own ability to achieve things, we won’t have the prerequisites for discipline and creativity. Discipline allows us to continuously improve in the face of inevitable obstacles. We have to give it a chance to strike every chance that we can otherwise our self efficacy will wither away because we will not see the outcomes that were promised to us by our selves. The last one, creativity is the most intuitive of the three but it is also the most abstract.  Creativity allows us to put a part of ourselves into our endeavors and get more in tune with what we want. When starting out I will ask the student what their goals are. This is a bit of a trick question because more often than not, we don’t know! We have no initial purpose, just a strong urge to find one. They will give answers such as learn a few songs, learn how to write music etc etc. However, once we start a song or two, I find they open up more to the possibilities in front of them and their goals over time become a lot more unique and personal. If done right I believe creativity is the way in which to understand your own values as well as how they fit into your life. I think this is by far the strongest tool available to us but without self efficacy and discipline, the prospect of being creative can seem insurmountable.