Choose Goals You Can Meet

Welcome to Practicing Harp Happiness, the Harp Mastery Podcast. My name is Ann Sullivan and I'm a harpist, teacher and founder of Harp Mastery. I'm all about creating more harp happiness in the world by helping harp players like you play the music they want the way they want. But as a harpist who nearly flunked out of one of the most prestigious music schools in the world, I although later not only graduated, but I went on to teach there. I know from personal experience that learning the harp is way harder than it looks. Here, each week on the Practicing Harp Happiness Podcast, I show you how to solve the challenges of practicing and playing the harp. Whether it's about making your fingers behave or learning music faster, or getting your piece's performance ready, or just learning to enjoy your playing every day. Sounds great, doesn't it? Let's get started. Welcome to today's show. This is the second in our month long series about goals, about selecting harp goals, about planning properly and about achieving and accomplishing your goals. Now on last week's show I talked about the different types of goals and particularly the four languages levels of goals that are our framework for goal success. This is the same framework that we use in our coaching program that I use in the Gold Circle program which I teach and it's part of everything we do at Harp Mastery. We call it the 90371 system and it helps you set goals and break them down. If you did not get a chance to listen to last week's show, I urge you to go back and do that and you will also find a link there in the show Notes to a PDF download of the framework so you can download the PDF and go ahead and fill it in with whatever goals seem like the right goals for you. And that's what we're going to talk about this week. On today's show I have a very special guest, Caitlin Mertens. Kaitlyn is a harpist in Houston. She is one of our Harp Mastery Certified coaches and she's the coach of our brand new Square One program. She is a very busy orchestral harpist in the Houston area and a freelance harpist as well. She is also a busy teacher with students not only through our coaching program but also through the schools in Houston. She is extremely involved with a contemporary music group called Loop 38 and she'll be telling you all about those things as part of today's show.

But I'm bringing Caitlin to you today because she has some wonderful insights on harp goals. And as part of our recent Back to School night, Caitlin gave a mini workshop on setting goals you can achieve. And I wanted her to not just share that with you on the podcast, but to have the chance to really dig into the topic a little bit more. As excited as I am about this week's show, I'm just as excited about next week's show and I want to pique your interest about that just a little bit. It's the third in our goal setting series and it's about making your plan and protecting it. And on that show, I am going to show you an actual plan that I made with one of my students and how we set that out, how I created that plan and then how we protected it so that as she went along, the things that were bound to come up to sort of sabotage her best efforts and get in the way of her successes, the plan was going to happen no matter what. So I want to walk you through that plan next week. One last thing. I need to apologize for the sound quality of my audio on our interview. It was not my usual microphone and the sound quality is not what you're used to hearing from me. At least I certainly hope not. So I apologize for that in advance. But I think that the information that Caitlin has to share will more than make up for my own audio quality there. So without further delay, let's get to our interview with Caitlin Mertens.

Caitlin, welcome. Thank you for being here. It's going to be fun to talk with you about this.

Thanks so much for having me. I'm very excited to be here.

Caitlin, one of the things you're going to help us understand today is what you think meaningful goals are, how goals can be achievable and how to get there or what happens when you don't get there. So what have you found in your experience in the coaching program and working with students and their goals?

It's been a very interesting process working in the coaching program because it's so goal oriented. It's very, very structured and it's really interesting to work with people who have these ambitions and goals and work to, to really make them achievable, to really make the.

To give them step by step.

Ways to achieve their goals and work with them week to week, addressing them, going back, reviewing them, it's been really interesting.

Do you find that a lot of students, even if in their regular lives they're used to setting out tasks and projects and goals, you find that this is new and different and somewhat strange for them to set out musical goals?

I think musical goals are very different than many other goals. I think A lot of time, because they're very internal, they're very internally motivated. And a lot of goals can be sort of externally imposed upon us. But in music, you have to really think about what you want, where you want to be and what it looks like. And it's a very different way to envision yourself in the future.

Well, I think that a lot of students get caught up in the trap of wanting to be better. So when a student comes to you and they say, well, I just want to get better at this or that or the other thing, how do you direct them into something that's more concrete?

Definitely. That's definitely something I've heard before. I think what happens, I just. I like to listen for a while, ask them questions, get to know what they've been doing on the harp, things that have made them feel really good in the past that they have achieved, or.

Just, you know, general ambitions that they may not feel are very specific ambitions or would be well suited for a musical goal. But just to ask them questions that don't theoretically relate to their specific musical goals. Just to hear them talk about their playing, to talk about their experiences. And from there, listening for 10 or 15 minutes, I can usually get an idea.

Of where they are, where they want to be.

And hear musical goals within what they're saying that they might not even know they have.

Well, and that's wonderful. And that's one of the great benefits for any student, working with a coach that can help drive, draw them out and help them identify what that next step is or that next level. But what would you say to a student who's trying to do this on their own? How will they know what that next level will entail.

In terms of choosing a goal on your own? I think it's important to do the same thing to. To kind of just think back on what you've done so far.

It's.

Let me jump in for a moment here. So pretend that I'm a student. And I mean, I am. We never stop being students, right? So. But I'm a student, and I've come to the realization that I don't really know what I don't know. I'm not sure what that next level is going to be. I'm looking around to find what my next piece might be or what my next level of achievement would be. What would you tell me would be my. My first step in sort of deciding where to look for that next step?

I think it can be really motivating to think back on something that a past Achievement that made you feel really accomplished, that made you feel like you, you really making the progress you wanted, or that just made you feel good, that you just enjoyed something playing the harp and, and ground yourself in that past experience and then see where you can grow from there. Something that you, there's a positive memory for you.

And then you know that the direction you're headed is, is towards more of that, towards more of that feeling and experience that you enjoyed and think back on.

You know, that reminds me of something that I heard once in another context and I started using in my own teaching. And it sounds just like what you're talking about in that I think our tendency is to look for weaknesses or problems or things we're not good at and think that that's where we need to direct our energies. But really if we direct our energies to doing more of what we're good at, then we know we're going in a direction that will make us happy. And I think that we can address the particular skills that we may need to develop along the way. But I think what you're saying is that the pursuit of the direction that leads us down that harp happiness path is really a good place to start looking for a goal.

And I think that if you want to achieve these things that aren't necessarily your weaknesses, you'll find that you're more motivated to address your weaknesses along the way because they will help you achieve this long term goal and this goal that is very motivating for you.

Absolutely. So what do you say then to the student who says, well, I want to do this, but I know I really should do that?

Yeah, yeah. If you feel very compelled, if you feel like you're obligated to, maybe there's a part that you, you can start to fade into a larger goal. You can have more than one goal at once. I think there are options there.

Start small with the, the should goals. Pick something that is very achievable.

Maybe a shorter term goal alongside of some other goals. If you have a longer term, more artistic goal, you also want to have shorter term things along the way too. Anyway.

Well, and so if you're talking long term and short term, what kind of time frame are we talking?

I mean, everybody wants to know when the end is going to be there, right? I was like, okay, how long is this going to take me?

That's, that's one of the harder questions I find, because it's so individual. Everybody learns at their own pace, has hours in the day. I mean, I guess we all have the same hours in the day, but everybody has different hours to dedicate to their HARP goals.

Yes.

But that's another time. Draw on your past experience if you can know what's realistic, what's happened in the past.

I think that it's nice. I know that.

Maybe some people listening have heard about the 90 day versus the month versus the week goals. I think that's a great structure to work within. Thinking, okay, what are my really long term. Got a couple months to work on it. Something that I can really focus on this week and totally knock out. I think having a variety of goals like that can be very motivating and helpful.

Yes. And if you haven't heard about those different levels of goals, I urge you to go back and listen to last week's podcast where I talked about that in some detail. And it's great to, you know, for people who really like to break stuff down. But there's another whole, you know, half the harpist population that really doesn't want to want to be that organized. And I confess that this is really my own bent. I'm really good at structuring things for other people, but I don't like to work within that kind of structure for myself. I achieve. I'm very driven to achieve the things that I do with the harp. And I have a schedule for myself, but I don't usually lay out the schedule for my students in quite the same way. And so, at the risk of sounding hypocritical, I want to say that I totally am convinced of the power of that framework, but at the same time, it doesn't work for everybody. So what's an alternative to that?

Yes, I think that the time frame is complicated. The deadline is really the hard part. I think then in that case, you want to make sure you still think about these ambitions, these, these places that you want to be. But come up with some stepping stones along the way. Make sure that, that you. You can feel yourself moving towards that goal. Even if you're not checking off things on a calendar or.

Or working within a really tight time frame. Make sure that you know how to get there. Give yourself like a map. Maybe that's more like.

The. The alternative is just knowing. Giving yourself a path to follow, which can be difficult too. But break down your goal into, okay, if I know I'm gonna. If I'm gonna get here, I know I'm going to need this skill or I'm going to need to learn these notes, or I'm gonna have to be able to do this technique smoothly and add them up, put them in order and lay them out for yourself in a way that, that, that feels like, okay, I'm making progress, I'm getting there. And then once you get to the end, you can look back on all the things that you accomplished along the way as well.

Yeah. So what you're really talking about, I think if I'm hearing you correctly, is breaking the goal down into sort of component parts rather than time frame chunks. And as long as you're working on the component parts, you know you're going to get where you're going. And you don't have to feel quite so bound by a schedule if that's just not your personal style.

And you know, if the path winds a little, you can go back and touch one of the earlier components and go ahead a little bit and work on another part of it and balance things. Maybe the path is wider in some spots. Yeah, I think those contrasting forms.

Yeah, well, and that's kind of what heart playing is all about, isn't it? I mean, it's not like one straight path. There are lots of twists and turns and lots of forward and backward motion. It's more of a, you know, it's. It's not a sort of steady highway. It's got a lot of different things along the way.

I think everybody's looks different. That's another part of it. Everybody's road can be wildly different.

That's right. But.

So what do you think is the.

Real power of having goals?

I think.

Sometimes it's easier to see the power in the negative. Right. Practicing without goals, you sit down, you don't know why am I here? I guess I'm working on this piece. You play through it a couple times. Did it get better? I don't know. I guess I stand up. After 30 minutes or an hour, you stand up and did I accomplish anything? I don't feel great about this. And after long term, day to day, it's confusing and aimless, but long term, it can be really frustrating. Frustrating because you look back and you don't see progress. You don't know where you came from and you don't know where you're going. So I think that's the, the true power of having a goal is, is to avoid that kind of practice. On the other hand, it can be very focused, very efficient, Much, much more efficient practice when you know what you're working on. And then long term, you know, you look back and.

And you can feel gratified and.

Have the feeling of achievement. Real achievement.

What have you experienced in your own harp playing about the power of harp goals?

You know, in thinking about it, I think there's been a big change recently for me.

As there has been for a lot of us.

So the pandemic made a lot of changes, didn't it?

And even just before the pandemic, I finished grad school just a little over three years ago, and before that I was an undergrad. And then your goals are very external. Of course, you've taken them on willingly, of course.

You. You want them. But it's very much, you have to learn this piece by this date and you have to be able to play it at this level. And. And so that was. It was really interesting to. To be in that environment for seven years and have those kind of goals.

And it's been really different. Obviously, leaving school is a big thing and then, you know, losing a lot of. A lot of external goals through the pandemic as well. Yeah. So recently it's been really interesting because there are very few requirements of my heart playing these days, very few externally imposed things. So it's been really different to.

Kind of do what I want.

You know, I want to choose something for me now that is the right balance of challenging, that's going to keep me interested in and motivating something that I genuinely want to do, and that is going to be good for me long term.

There's like a certain amount of maintenance. That is something that I'm working on now just for being ready for when things come up. I've been excited about recording some music for weddings, just, you know, my favorite wedding music. Just getting recordings out there so that when I'm contacted by somebody, then I can just send them some nice little examples. And I've also been able to really invest in some other projects, like being really involved in Heart Mastery, which has been great. I work with a contemporary ensemble and I've been really involved lately with making concerts happen and getting recordings there. So it's been really interesting to see this huge shift in my own personal goals too.

What do I want to do with my own time.

Yeah, it has certainly made a change across the whole musical community when. And looking at it in terms of goals, when you don't have those continual demands of the next performance and the performance after that, and the performance after that. When you don't have those on your schedule, then all of a sudden you're faced with the situation that I think most of our students are faced with all the time, which is what is my practice going to do for me today? What is it going to do over the next couple months?

So I think it's forced all of us to look at our goals.

In a different way. Because if there's no meaning beyond the WD40, keeping the rust off kind of practice, if there's no meaning beyond that to our practice.

I don't know about you, but for me, that's not enough.

Yeah. And it's been an adventure. It's been really interesting.

Certainly it has been an adventure. Well, so.

Let'S talk just for a moment, because you mentioned your work with the contemporary ensemble.

It's been a couple of years that I have been the harvest for this group is called Loop 38. It's a Houston based group. And so I've been playing lots of concerts going around. We really like to use a lot of different venues within Houston. Houston's a huge city and there are plenty of.

Places to go, really interesting venues and places to perform music.

And then within the past couple of years, I've been helping manage the marketing side of things and the production side as well, which is, you know, who's gonna take the tickets at the concert, who's gonna bring the chairs, who's gonna bring the music stands, and also how are we gonna get people to be there? So that's been a huge learning experience for me through the pandemic.

Still, you know, music based, still heading towards things that I care about, playing music by composers who are still alive.

But obviously there's been less performing and we've had to do a lot of rethinking of what is possible in the past year and a half. So that's been. That's been very fun. A lot of work.

Yeah, it sounds. I could just imagine thinking about.

Just sort of the number of tasks and then the size of the strategy on top of that. That has to drive all of that. That's a huge project, for sure. For sure.

We just achieved nonprofit status, which was a huge, long thing. But we're very excited about that.

Congratulations.

Yeah.

That is an ordeal in terms of the paperwork. I know.

So good job.

That's wonderful. That's wonderful. And one of the things that I haven't mentioned.

At this point is that as part of Heart Mastery, not only are you doing your coaching, but you started a new program at Heart Mastery called Square One. Do you want to talk about that a little bit?

Yes, I'd love to. So Square One is launching in the fall. We've got a little time before we get going there, but I saw.

This potential need out there for a real beginner's course, starting from square one. No matter what, where you're coming from, if you play another instrument, if you've never touched a harp before, there's a lot of things that I feel like are very helpful groundwork and framework to lay down in the very beginning of harp playing. I've been starting some beginners at a local middle school. They come in in sixth grade and they have no idea what the harp is. Some of them have played piano before, and that's helpful. But I've learned a lot in.

This feeder program. Just, you know, there's. Harp is coming into sixth grade, and I've been teaching a lot of beginners and seeing what is the most helpful for them, seeing where they grow and what they need. I thought we need something out there to help people.

Really get started on the right track and give them what they need to move in the right direction in their harp goals.

And the program, the way you've set it up is just fabulous. But square one is a program for adult beginners. Right. So what's the. What do you think are the particular challenges for adults who are beginning as opposed to kids who might be beginning?

I think the biggest one is probably time, because adults have a lot of demands on their time. That when you're in sixth grade and you have an orchestra period and you have these harps at school. The middle school where I teach owns eight, nine harps. Wow.

Wow, that's great.

It's amazing. So, you know, access to these kind of things and. And getting into it, feeling like you're ready to start something brand new as an adult is very different. But I think it's actually really fun on the flip side, to work with adults who we can have discussions about.

Music theory and practice habits. Whereas when you're starting as a beginner, at some point you just need the next step. You just need to know what's happening in this lesson. But I think with adults, you can talk a lot more about.

The overall picture. You can get a lot of the big picture working with a group of adults.

And certainly when you're. I mean, square one is a small group program. So you've got just a few people who are potentially at very different experience levels, music wise. And so you've got the person that has never done anything musical and doesn't know how to read music, and the person who's pretty proficient at music but new to the harp. How are you able to blend that into one cohesive program?

I think one big part of it is that that's actually a real benefit for the course is that there's this diversity of experience that because it's a small group, you can share with each other, we can work together, you can, you know, communicate throughout the week without me, ask questions of each other, chat online. But. But the other part of things is that.

I think that having a consistent sort of education in these things, starting from Square one and building with the same instruction with the same people, no matter where you're coming from, you've gotten a lot of different.

Resources that are maybe are teaching the same things, but in a different way. And I think that even if you know how to read music, and we cover the basics of music reading, the way we build on top of that is going to be consistent. We're going to be able to talk about it with a shared vocabulary and build on top of it in a really meaningful and powerful way.

In the Square One course, obviously, you have beginners who are ready to work on their very first harp goals. And we've sort of. We've given people, I think, a lot of ideas for being able to create their own goal and to find that next step on their individual personal harp path. But I think we should probably cover the elephant in the room kind of question. And that is. So you've seen set this harp goal, but what happens if you can't meet it? What happens if you don't see yourself getting any closer to it over time? How do you know if it's you, if it's the goal, if you're just not good at the harp and you better quit? I mean, how do you deal with that?

That can be one of the most difficult and devastating parts of this. I think when you look back and you do have a goal and it doesn't.

It doesn't feel like you're getting there? I think two things that can make a goal more achievable are timeline. Obviously, that one, you know, if a goal is too short or too long, it can make it impossible. So thinking about how much time do I actually need to do this is what the progress I've made so far is that.

Gauging off of what you've done, what you've done in the past. But I think the other part of it is specificity. It's impossible to meet a vague goal. There's no way. So you have to think about.

This as a specific thing that you can work towards, that you can extract those stepping stones from and sort of refocus a little bit. Maybe if your goal is a little too vague, pick something a little more specific and head in that direction. But I think another part of this is that when you don't meet a goal, whether it's a timeline goal or whether you're just looking back on your path and not seeing it seems very windy. Maybe.

This is the opportunity to learn from this experience. Look back and learn from this goal that you set that you didn't meet. And that's okay, I think. Take those things into account, look back, reflect on.

What your process has been, what your goal was, what your goal is, what your goal could be, a section of your goal. Really reflect, think back and take those things into account as you move forward. Because we're always moving forward. And that's, that's the idea is to just keep moving forward, but don't reflect on yourself with judgment. Right? Don't. It's, it's so important to look back and not say, oh, I can't believe I didn't do this. I better just not ever do this again. This is terrible. It feels awful. I'm, I'm awful. It's, there's no, it's not productive at all to think like that. And you can learn so much more from yourself if you say, why didn't this happen? What can I do differently next time? What did work about this? Because there are probably some things that did work about what you were doing, but there are probably also things that didn't work. So take the opportunity. This came up in a workshop months ago in a heart mastery workshop. Treat yourself like your teacher would. And that has really stuck with me. So don't talk to yourself as if you're, you know, passing judgment on yourself. Try to think about what your teacher would say in that moment or.

A mentor, somebody else in your life that wouldn't talk down to you like you would yourself. And.

Learn from this experience. I think that's the most important part, is to learn.

What do you think too about creating.

Learning sort of learning goals for yourself by starting with very small things to sort of build a track record of successes. Have you found that to be a successful strategy?

Absolutely. Because I think the best thing you can do to set better goals is to set goals in the first place and reflect on them and learn from them. But of course, course a daunting three month goal may not be the place to start, so. Exactly. Choose something.

Easily. I don't want to say easily achievable. You want to challenge yourself, but choose a one week Or a two week goal. Say, I'm really going to fix this technique in my playing. I'm really going to learn this page of music. I'm going to make sure I have the consistent fingerings and that every time I slowly play it absolutely correctly. Something like that, where you can, you can set a goal for yourself. It's not this big, huge long term goal, but it's bite sized and you can learn from it and then go from there and keep moving and keep setting those kind of goals. And then maybe it'll give you even more focus on what you want your long term goal to be.

Yeah, absolutely. Now, I had one more thought about that too. I was thinking, okay, so we're setting the goals and feeling really positive and energized. But is there one sort of pitfall here that you would warn harpists about as they're going about setting goals? Maybe setting goals for the first time? Is there sort of a common pitfall that they may not be aware of that we could help them avoid?

Let's see. I think it's always tempting to make your goals music based or about the music you're learning.

And those can be really helpful goals. Getting this page of notes down, whatever it may be. I think it's important to have a diversity of goals though. So consider. Maybe your first goal doesn't need to be about learning a piece. Maybe it's a technical goal like changing a habit or strengthening muscles or learning a new skill. Maybe it's musical playing, something you already know, but with dynamics that you feel really good about or with really full dynamic range. It doesn't have to be note based. It can, but I think it can be a good place to start to say, maybe I just want to change a habit about my practice. Maybe I just want to practice 15 minutes a day. Maybe I just want to say for the next two weeks I'm going to be at the harp for at least 15 minutes every day. That's a goal.

And that's an easy one to win with, isn't it?

Because 15 minutes even, it's at the end of the day, you sit down, you play a couple scales or do your warmup and you have accomplished your goal for the day.

And a goal like that, I find is extremely powerful because it's building a foundation that will serve as a springboard for more goals, for more achievement. Right? I mean, if you're actually sitting at the heart practicing, guess what? You're going to do something. Something's going to, you're going to move the needle one way or another, aren't you?

Absolutely.

Okay, one last thing before I let you go. I think you've given everybody so much encouragement and so much good direction about the power of goals, what kind of goals to look at, and.

How to identify goals for themselves if they don't have a teacher to help them identify it. But would you mind sharing with us what one of your harp goals that you have in front of you now?

Right now? Yeah, I think.

Well, the boring one is to keep maintaining audition material that's always there. It's always underground, keeping the rest off. But.

But that's a hard one, though. I mean, because. Because it's. It. Because that one. I mean, the ultimate attitude achievement as far as keeping orchestra audition repertoire in your fingers, the ultimate goal is getting a job. So it's not like there's a timeline that's under your control. So that's a difficult. But it's kind of a habit goal at this point, isn't it? It's just. It's part of my routine. I have to do it.

And I will say that the pandemic gave a good opportunity for a break from that goal, which I think without you don't get a break. If your goal is to have an orchestra job, there's no time to take breaks. So that has also been really valuable. And a good part of goals is knowing when to take a step back as well. Ooh, Good pointer to let it sink in. So that's been a part of my goal lately. Not as much lately, but especially the first couple months of, okay, everything is canceled. I might take a little break. And it felt really good.

Yeah, there's nothing wrong with that for sure.

But let's go to sort of a more in your control kind of goal.

Yeah. The thing that's been exciting and motivating for me, I actually bought a new phone recently. My phone was a piece of garbage. It was terrible. And now I have a nice one with a really nice camera that I'm going to use to record. I have this book of music that I use at weddings and background music things. And there's a lot of people pieces that I play that I really like. And I really, you know, when I get to them in the book, I get excited and I want to record them. I want to have nice recordings so that when I need to suggest something, it's a very useful goal. And it's been on my mind for a long time. But now is the perfect time to just get a nice recording of a piece like that, that I love playing, that is just in my fingers and I can always pull it out of this giant binder and make it happen. So that's been a fun project that I've been working on. Of course, recording is not always fun, as anybody who's recorded can tell you.

But goals often involve work that we may or may not feel like doing, but when the goal is worthwhile, the work just becomes necessary and somehow becomes less onerous. Right.

Well, good for you. Well, I wish you all the luck with that, and I want to thank you for your energies at Heart Mastery, both as a certified coach and now coach of our new Square One program.

I'm just so excited that we get to share your gifts with harp students at all different kinds of levels in this way. So thank you for everything that you do for heart Math and for everything that you do for your students everywhere. They clearly have a gifted teacher and one who enjoys seeing them succeed as well.

It's been my pleasure. I look forward to meeting new students through Heart Mastery and otherwise all the time.

Yeah, I can tell. Thank you, Caitlin.

Well, I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did. It's always a pleasure to talk to Caitlin, and I think she had so much to share in this interview that I hope you are inspired and have lots of ideas for what you might want to accomplish in the coming weeks.

With your harp playing.

I'd like to just draw your attention to a couple of things that I thought were particularly important in what Caitlin had to share, and that was that goals are best if they have a timeline. Remember, she talked about really short term wins, but also longer term goals and how both of those are important. But the timeline was key. The other key she mentioned is to make your goals specific. Don't be afraid to be very clear about what it is you want to achieve. Also, just the permission, I think, that she gave you to remember that the path winds a little bit and not to be worried by the things that seem to be little side roads that you go down, but rather to, you know, if you need to get back on track, then you can do that. If you need to readjust your goal, you can do that too. But the timeline and the specificity I think were really important. And one last takeaway, something that really resonated with me, she said now is the perfect time, and it is, whenever you are starting is the perfect time, and now is the perfect time. Obviously, it's the beginning of a new season, a new academic sort of year. You know, it's things are starting up. Maybe things are not as free as we thought they might be in terms of the environment. We know there's a lot going on and a lot that's uncertain, but it's still a great time, the perfect time to start those goals, to start a plan, to give yourself something to focus on and look forward to. And goals are great. Remember to that. They are a learning experience. They're not a checklist, they're not a report card. You don't fail at goals, you merely learn from them. Whether you achieve them in the timeline or in the way you expected, or whether that achievement comes in a completely different way, or perhaps you have to reset, it's a learning experience and that's what you're really looking for in your goals process. So let's build from there, shall we? Once again, I refer you to the Show Notes for links to some of the things that Kaitlin mentioned in this interview. Also to a link for our Square One program if you think that might be interesting, and to our coaching program. We're in the middle of a coaching session right now, but the coaching the next coaching session will be starting in January and you can join our first to Know list and get on that as well. Again, if you would like that 90371 framework, the PDF that you can fill out that go back to last week's podcast episode. I'll put that link in the show notes as well and you'll be able to access that PDF so you can can get started on your planning process. As I was telling you before, on next week's show, which is the third in our goal setting series, I'm going to be walking you through a specific plan, a plan that I created for one of my students. This was a student who was having trouble getting hands together and we needed to set out an actual step by step system that was going to allow her to learn a piece hands together and to feel much more confident with her hands together coordination and abilities. We decided that it was going to speed up all of her playing and all of her music learning if we could solve this one problem. So I'll talk to you about how we decided that this was going to be the focus for our goal and the plan that we set out to achieve it and how we protected that plan against the various things that were likely to come up to sidetrack us. So I'll be walking you through that very specifically next week and I can't wait to share that with you. So don't miss next week's show. Thanks for tuning into another episode of the Practicing Harp Happiness Podcast. I release a new episode every Monday morning so you can hit your practice week running. Until then, remember to practice your Harp happiness every day. See you next time.