John Lennon's classic line, "Life is what happens while you're making other plans," is true for everything except your career in music.
In the music business, you don't have a life unless you've made specific plans.
The artists who survive are those artists who knew where they wanted and figured out how to get it.
Making plans doesn't eliminate every bump along the way, but it makes the bumps easier to handle when you hit them.
There will still be plenty of unexpected twists and turns to add to the excitement.
Having a plan gives you a direction to head for and a way to get back on course when you head towards a dead end.
  How can you start making plans, beyond just thinking where you're going to play next week? Picture yourself winning your first Grammy for Best New Artist.
If you're like most "Best New Artists, you will have probably been in the business for at least a few years already by that time.
So much for being a new artist.
"Best New Artist" just sounds better than "Best Act to Have Survived Long Enough To Get To The Top.
" The engraving plate on a Grammy Award isn't big enough to handle that many words.
If you're the kind of an artist who would be insulted by the very idea of being accepted by the mainstream so much that you would win a Grammy, then think of something else.
The Grammy isn't the point in this exercise, it's only there to give you a point of reference.
You could think about your first album, your first stadium gig, or some other big milestone event in your career.
This is actually a variation of an exercise that originally appeared in Stephen Covey's "The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People.
" In Covey's version he suggested that you imagine you are attending your own funeral.
Unless you're really into Goth, that's kind of a depressing thought.
It's much more pleasant to think about winning an award or thinking of the names that would appear on the "Thank You" list of your CD.
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