On Trying To Impress Yourself: Stretch Goals and Impostor Syndrome
With yesterday being Father’s Day, I thought back to the memories of the man who first taught me to place my fingers on guitar strings without deadening the notes. He is also the man who taught me to be a man.
My dad wasn’t an entrepreneur or a professional musician. He wasn’t a big risk taker. But he had work ethic by the boatload.
I drove an antique car in high school, A 1963 Chevy II Nova, and there was always something that needed to be done on that car: Replacing points and plugs, rebuilding/replacing carburetors, etc.
Dad wasn’t a mechanic. In fact, he would always tell me that he hated that kind of work because seemingly simple tasks would end up taking twice as long and be twice as difficult as originally planned. Sound familiar, musicians and entrepreneurs?
It was during one of those maintenance sessions that he said something to me that stuck like glue: “Son, there will always be things that you think that you could never do, but if you stick with it, you will surprise yourself at what you can accomplish.
What? My father, the superhero, didn’t have it all figured out? He was still learning and making it up as he went along? That honesty and vulnerability was a pivot point for me.
Stretch goals are goals that are bigger than us — things that we truly don’t believe that we can accomplish…but we try them anyway. The beautiful thing about stretch goals is that even if we don’t accomplish them, we have moved the ball much closer to the end zone. We’ve gotten better. We’ve stretched. We’ve grown. And we’ve surprised and impressed ourselves.
Stretch goals are the best combatant against Impostor Syndrome — that defeating voice in our heads that tells us that we are not good enough, not worthy. Stretch goals make us do things. Making any sort of progress punches Impostor Syndrome in the mouth.
Two years ago, I sat in the writing room with Jonathan Singleton, a good friend of mine, who happens to be a GRAMMY nominated hit songwriter in Nashville. I’m not a country songwriter. I’m a singer-songwriter. Splitting hairs? No, the differences are monumental. I set a stretch goal of trying to write outside of my wheelhouse.
During that writing session, Jonathan began stressing the importance of being able to record my own music at home. He basically told me that technology has made it to where there are no more excuses for not putting something out myself.
But I could never do that. Easy for him to say, he’s been recording digitally since digital recording first started catching on. I was 39 years old. I couldn’t learn that stuff. I mean, slow down, dude. Let me get a handle on this country songwriting thing first.
But just like the advice given to me by my dad while working on that old Chevy II, something stuck.
Fast forward two years: That song has been cut by an up and coming artist and was produced by the two-time GRAMMY winning producer/engineer on Taylor Swift’s ‘Fearless’ album.
I’ve signed two licensing deals in Los Angeles on four songs that I wrote, played and recorded myself.
I have four new songs that I have just submitted for more licensing opportunities.
I just finished up the second season of Left Of Nashville, a documentary podcast that is written, recorded, produced and hosted by me.
So do me a favor. Try to impress yourself by doing something that you think is impossible. I bet you can. And in doing so, you’ll impress others.
Brandon Barnett is a singer-songwriter from Jackson, Tennessee. He is also the creator of Left Of Nashville, a documentary podcast highlighting the ups and downs in attempting to have a career in music. @leftofnashville on Twitter and Instagram.
