World-Class House Music, House Dance Videos, and the Adventures of Danny Dance

The first day of a new year is as great a time as any to take a good look in the mirror, peer through the eyes of your inner destiny, and take stock of your dreams.  As productive as 2011 was for me personally, professionally, and musically, I feel that one of the biggest lessons of last year was how important it is to bridge your actions to your ambitions.  As the song goes, “heaven is only one step away,” and however you define your own heaven during your time here on Earth (a time I call ‘This One and Only Chance to Live and Dance‘), taking that one first step is critical.

For me, personal paradise consists of achieving an iteration of myself that I know exists in there somewhere, one that answers, “What am I capable of when I push myself to my personal and creative limits?”  It’s an important question, and if I was placed here at the caprice of a random universe, as the cosmically improbable consequence of atoms coming together just so at precisely the right time in the right place, then I want my life to be an opportunity to make up my own right reason for being here.  I intend to spend 2012 laying the groundwork for just that.

But what does it take to do that?  How can we structure our days this year to create an atmosphere that builds on all we’ve learned and turns those lessons into successes?  How can I use my passion for House Music to fuel my financial self-sufficiency and create a sense of real accomplishment?  Can the inherent limitations of time—after all, everything takes time: businesses take time to build, plans take time to unravel, and even patience takes time to yield its virtue—be reduced so that I reach my goals sooner?  I don’t have the answers to these questions yet, but on my quest to become a world-class sample-based House Music producer and build a successful music business through my new Dance Is A Feeling LLC, I’ve come to understand that there are key factors I can’t compromise if I’m going to ‘get there’:

1. The goals to guide my path
2. The habits to guide my goals
3. The discipline to guide my habits
4. The health to guide my discipline
5. The choices to guide my health

Without goals, we are little more than leaves in the protean wind of time, plotting an inconsistent path rather than a reliable arc towards our destinations.  I need to make goals that fully support where I’m trying to go; these goals can be simple and even general, but their effects are deeply felt when seen through.  Something as basic as “improve as a music producer“ guides my path towards an end that I can work my way to, and setting these kinds of goals is the first of the important pieces of a plan.

The second piece is equally crucial: when people make resolutions or set goals but do not reach them, it’s often as a result of not making solid habits.  A habit must be written down and tracked regularly; it has to relate directly to your goals in a direct and persistent way.  Examples of habits that guide my goal of becoming a better producer are to read an hour of books like ‘The Producer’s Manual‘ each day and to create two new songs daily.  These actions—habits—feed the goal in an iterative way.

Thirdly, and necessarily, I need to develop the discipline to stick with my habits through thick and thin, every single day of the year; the destabilizing pillars of normal life, be they sleepless party nights, day job-induced tiredness, and emotional hangovers of romance, can’t become fodder for slacking on the habits that support my goals.  This is probably the easiest link to break in the chain, but also the one of most consequence.  As a friend mentioned earlier on my Facebook wall, “No one is on all the time”, which is true—but we have to try.

If you’re wondering what it takes to stay sane when adhering so strongly to your vision, the answer lies in your health.  If you are sound of mind, sound of body, and sound of spirit, you’ll be more likely to be sound of—in my case, one of the things I strive for—sound of music.  I recently challenged myself to a 99-day fitness duel made up of four simple things I can work on: walk daily, do push-ups and sit-ups on alternating days, and stretch regularly.  Though I’ve dealt with debilitating lower back pain for years, lateral lumbar scoliosis be damned, I’m committed to managing the pain and mitigating its impact on me this year.  And health need not be just physical—the more things you do that make you happy, from spending time with friends & family and allowing romance into your life to watching the latest Louis C.K. comedy special and dancing outdoors like nobody cares—the healthier you’ll be in support of your discipline.

Finally, I can’t control the universe or even all the things in my little slice of it, but I can control the choices that I make, and these choices impact everything from my health on up.  Things like choosing to let the right people in and the wrong people go; choosing how I spend my time or who gets to spend it with me; choosing to tackle my daily habits before turning on Words With Friends (I’m a hopeless addict); and choosing experiences that ultimately support my goals rather than slow me down will help me stay beholden to my health and answerable to my vision.

So plans are wide amalgams of goals, habits, discipline, health, and the choices you make; if you have the foresight to envision what you want, and the courage to bridge your actions to your ambitions, steadfastly moving towards your goals, you will someday answer all your inner questions, you’ll move a step closer to your heaven, and you’ll make the very best of This One and Only Chance to Live and Dance.

-Danny Dance