There’s nothing more satisfying and fulfilling than achieving something that you’ve set out to do no matter how big or small it may be. As simple as it sounds, not a lot of DJ’s take setting goals seriously and it’s one of the most important DJ tips I could recommend.
Not having a plan for your career ahead is just as crazy as driving blindly down an open road. Every DJ must have a plan but before you can start to build your plan, you need goals. You’ll never know if you’re heading in the right direction if you don’t have a destination in mind.
We’ve always been big on setting our own goals. Each and every year before the New Year strikes, we review the last year and tick off what we achieved and analyse what we didn’t. We then discuss our new aspirations and write down our new goals for the year ahead. Being able to measure your progress is one of the most valuable tools.
Each year we’re forced to remember exactly what we set out to do and by discussing them and working out what went well and what didn’t go so well we learn how to readjust our game for the next time around. As the nature of our career changes shape, sometimes the goals on our list might not be important anymore. More often than not, looking at an unachieved goal sitting right there in front of you after a whole year of chasing it only makes you more determined than ever to tick it off the list. You’ll see in our example goal lists below that we’ve been setting out to achieve a Beatport Top 10 since 2008 and hadn’t achieved it until recently.
Goal setting also works on a more short-term scale. Whenever we work on a project whether it’s a marketing campaign for a track, a music tour and pumping up our social media, we set our self time limits and targets. The more detailed your goals, the easier it becomes to start building a plan as the blueprint starts to form right in front of your eyes.
Having lifetime goals is also great. For example, DJ Master Course was a lifetime goal for Chris and I. We always knew that we wanted to be involved in DJ Management and mentoring once we got to the point where we had a lot to offer but we weren’t certain of exactly when that was. When we started out we knew that we wanted to be the best DJ’s we could be and we weren’t thinking about being involved in projects like this at that time.
As life starts to take direction things become important to you and the ideas you start to form are nothing but that at first, just ideas. Once you take the initiative to actually put them on paper, they start to become real. When the opportunity came up to be involved in our EDM talent group 360 Agency, we jumped at it, ready for the challenge. The same happened with DJ Master Course. What began as a simple idea that Chris and I had spoke about so many years ago, is now a reality for us in both instances.
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Pictured: Chris & I achieving one of our goals DJing our residency at LIGHT Las Vegas.
Setting goals is just the first part of the equation. Goals need to be put into action so the first thing you will need to do once you set your goals is share them with the people that are most important in your organisation. If your goals are to get a DJ manager, then you should be working on all the things you need to do to get a good DJ manager. If you already have a manager, they should be the person that you’re discussing your goals with the most. Everyone needs to have the same vision in your team if you really want to maximise your potential. If your goals don’t align with the goals of your manager, agent or publicist then someone is out of place.
Being able to measure your progress is not only a great skill to master as a DJ, it will help you in all aspects of your life. Being good at life is all part of being a great anything. It’s a tough world out there in any industry and the DJ world is no exception. There will always be fierce competition and a million variables that will get in the way of you achieving success. So, stay focussed, set goals and keep your eyes on the prize. You don’t have to know how to write a business plan or have a degree in economics. Just write down the things that are most important to you and go after them, review them frequently (we review ours monthly) and adjust the plan if you are not heading in the right direction.
Just out of interest, here’s a list of our goals last year and five years before that.
STAFFORD BROTHERS GOALS 2008
+ Have an original track in the top 5 of the Australian Club Chart (Achieved)
+ Make the top 3 in the Australian ITM Awards (Achieved)
+ Pay off credit cards (Achieved)
+ Go to the gym 5 days a week (Achieved)
+ Overseas gigs and tours (Achieved)
+ Tour of Asia around Christmas (Achieved)
+ Secure a festival tour for 2009 (Achieved)
+ Renovate our apartment (Unsuccessful)
+ Get our own website (Achieved)
+ Have at least 1 online video per month (Unsuccessful)
+ Get an American working visa (Unsuccessful)
+ Secure some paid remix work (Achieved)
+ Beatport Top 10 record – all genres (Achieved)
+ Hire a leading music PR company overseas and in Australia (Unsuccessful)
STAFFORD BROTHERS GOALS 2013
+ #1 crossover single with ‘Hello’ (Unsuccessful – Number #4)
+ Beatport Top 10 record – all genres (Achieved)
+ Beatport #1 record – genre (Achieved)
+ Radio show on an American network (Achieved)
+ Sushi Radio distributed in the United States (In Progress)
+ DJ Master Course re-launched internationally (Achieved)
+ Release 6 club records with respected International labels (In Progress)
+ Have over 20k followers on SoundCloud (In Progress)
+ Have over 125K likes on Facebook (Achieved)
+ Have over 25K followers on Twitter (Achieved)
+ Drink a maximum of 2 nights per week (Unsuccessful)
+ Produce new TV show for the US market (In Progress)
+ High profile DJ residency in LA and Vegas (Achieved)
+ Obtain residency in Miami and NYC (In Progress)
+ Play Ultra Music Festival (Unsuccessful)
+ Play All EDC music festivals (Unsuccessful)
+ Tour Europe & Play Ibiza (Achieved)
+ Pete Tong to premiere one of our records (In Progress)
+ Maintain #1 DJ in Australia at the ITM Awards (Achieved)
+ Make the DJ Mag Top 100 (In Progress)
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