What Does Success Really Mean?

A Soft Synced Companion Guide

Core Track → Why Learn Anything? → Lesson 1

How to Use This Guide

This guide contains essential concepts you'll need for Your Turn and beyond. Read it at your own pace and take breaks when needed, but don't skip it. The depth here is what makes the play and practice work.

Introduction

This guide helps you identify your own definition of success, distinguish between measurable achievements and personal fulfillment, and use that clarity to make deliberate learning decisions. The work here is foundational. Every choice about what to study and which skills to prioritize flows from how you answer this lesson's central question.

1. Two Categories of Success

Ask yourself: can you measure your definition of success with numbers, or is it about how you feel? Write it down before continuing. You'll need it in Lesson 7.

Most definitions fall into two categories, and most meaningful goals include both.

Objective Success

Objective success involves measurable achievements. These are outcomes you can track with numbers or external validation: reaching a specific stream count, performing at a particular venue, earning target income from music, receiving an award, securing a publishing deal. Objective goals have clear thresholds. You know when you have reached them.

One consideration worth examining: many objective metrics depend heavily on factors outside your direct control. Streaming numbers depend on platform algorithms, audience behavior, timing, and market trends. Venue bookings depend on bookers, budgets, and competition. This does not make these goals invalid, but it does make them less predictable. We’ll explore this in more detail a little later. 

Subjective Success

Subjective success centers on personal fulfillment. These are internal experiences that cannot be measured externally: translating the music you hear in your head into finished tracks, creating work that feels emotionally authentic, developing the ability to express specific ideas through sound, building confidence in your creative judgment. Subjective goals do not have finish lines in the traditional sense. Progress is felt rather than counted.

Consider two producers. One defines success as releasing an album that reaches 100,000 streams within six months. Another defines success as completing twelve tracks over the next year that represent their current creative vision. Both definitions provide direction. The first producer will prioritize release strategy and audience building. The second will prioritize consistent output and creative clarity.

The balance between objective and subjective is personal. What matters is identifying which category carries more weight for you right now, because that knowledge determines where to focus your learning energy.

2. How Your Definition Shapes Learning

Your definition of success determines which skills matter most at any given time. This has immediate, practical consequences for how you spend your hours.

If your aim involves reaching a large audience, you need to understand release strategies, playlist pitching, and social media presence in addition to production skills. If your aim centers on creative expression or skill development, you prioritize sound design, arrangement depth, and mixing techniques. If your aim involves earning income from production work, you need to learn client communication, project management, and how to deliver technically clean files on schedule.

Your resources (time, attention, energy) are finite. Your definition helps you allocate them effectively. It answers the question: "What should I focus on this month?"

Here's what happens without clarity: you may study skills in random order, guided by whichever tutorial catches your attention. You will make progress, but it may be diffuse. Defining success gives you a compass. You can change direction later, but at least you will know which direction you are currently moving.

3. The Evolution of Aims

Quick question: will what matters to you now still matter in five years?

Probably not entirely. Definitions of success change over time. This is normal. What matters to you now might shift in one year or five as you gain experience or develop different priorities.

Some producers begin wanting playlist placements and later realize they prefer the creative process itself. Others discover they enjoy the business side (negotiating deals, managing projects) more than expected. Still others find that teaching becomes more fulfilling than performing. None of these shifts represents failure. They represent growth.

Be aware that your definition of success might change without your awareness, leaving you pursuing an outdated aim out of habit. Every few months, revisit the definition you wrote down. Ask whether it still represents what you want. If your priorities have shifted, update your definition and adjust your learning focus accordingly.

Producers who thrive over decades are not the ones who picked a goal at twenty and never reconsidered it. They are the ones who regularly checked in with themselves, acknowledged when their aims had evolved, and recalibrated their efforts to match current priorities.

4. Conscious Choice and External Influence

Are These Goals Actually Yours?

Where did your definition of success come from? Think about it honestly.

Some producers adopt definitions from external sources without examining whether those definitions align with their own priorities. The sources vary: social media, cultural narratives, peer groups, industry standards. External influence is always present to some extent but the question is whether you have examined that influence and decided it reflects what you genuinely want.

The challenge often appears years into the pursuit. You might achieve the milestone you were chasing and feel uncertain about what comes next. Or you might realize the work required does not align with how you want to spend your time. Or you might hit the target and discover the achievement does not deliver the fulfillment you expected. These outcomes can occur when the goal was adopted without conscious examination.

Why Other People's Success Feels Personal

Comparison can obscure this examination. When you see another producer reaching a milestone (playlist placement, festival booking, viral track), the visibility of their achievement can make it feel like the milestone you should pursue. But their success and your success can both be real, even if they look nothing alike. Their aim is not your aim. Acknowledging their achievement does not require changing your focus.

Validation vs Effort

One pattern worth noticing: goals that depend entirely on external validation (follower counts, streaming numbers, industry recognition) are particularly vulnerable to comparison and frustration. These metrics shift with trends, algorithms, and factors beyond your control. One intending to live a healthy life may want to wish for things within their control. Goals rooted in effort and skill development (complete a track every two weeks, master a new synthesis technique each month, improve your mixing consistency) remain stable regardless of external conditions. As pointed out earlier, both types of goals are valid, but the latter tends to sustain motivation over longer periods.

Whenever you observe a goal or desire appear in your head, examine where it came from. If you realize some components were adopted without examination, ask whether they truly reflect what you want. Keep what aligns. Revise what does not.

Your Turn: The Three-Part Definition

This exercise establishes your working definition of success. You will return to this in Lesson 8, so treat this as a document you will revisit. Set aside 20 minutes with no distractions. Consider starting a fresh notebook for this exercise. There will be more where this came from. Of course, you can choose to do these in digital format. What matters is your system works for you. 

Step 1: List Three Components

Write down three things success means to you. Be specific. Instead of "making good music," write "creating tracks that capture the atmospheric quality I hear in my head." Instead of "getting noticed," write "complete and release one track per month for the next year."

Notice the difference between those examples. The first in each pair is vague. The second is actionable. The second also emphasizes what you can control: your creative clarity, your consistency, your output. External recognition may follow, but it is not the measure of success itself.

Step 2: Explain Each Component

For each item, write a short paragraph (four to six sentences) that addresses:

  • Why this component matters to you personally

  • How you will recognize progress toward it

  • What you are willing to trade or sacrifice to achieve it

The third question is critical. Every goal has a cost: time, money, comfort, other opportunities. If you cannot name what you are willing to give up, the goal may need further examination.

Step 3: Identify Controllable Actions

For each component, write down one action you can take this month that moves you toward it. Focus on what is within your direct control. If your component involves streaming numbers, the controllable action might be "finish and release one track." If your component involves creative clarity, the controllable action might be "spend two hours per week on sound design exercises."

Expected outcome

By the end of this exercise, you should have a document that states clearly what you are working toward, why it matters, and what specific actions you can take. Save this piece of paper or document. You will reference it when making decisions about which skills to prioritize.

Next time you open the app, mark this Turn complete!
Bonus Tip: Add a reflection to Your Turn to earn Depth points, which unlock Extension Courses!

Producer FAQs

  • This is common, especially early in your development. Start by identifying what you know you do not want. Many producers find it easier to rule out paths than to choose one. If you know you are not interested in performing live, or building a large social media presence, or working under tight client deadlines, those exclusions narrow the field. From there, experiment with small commitments. Spend a month focusing on one type of work (sound design, arrangement, mixing, promotion) and notice which activities feel engaging versus draining. Note that you should still find the activity challenging. We’ll discuss the importance of desirable difficulty in lesson 6 of this course. Your definition of success will emerge through experience, not through thinking alone.

  • Most producers pursue both. The question is how to balance them given your current resources. If you have ten hours per week for music, you will need to prioritize. A balanced approach might involve dedicating 70% of your time to the category that feels most urgent right now and 30% to the other. The percentages will shift as your situation changes. The key is to make the allocation deliberately, not by accident. Remember, goals rooted in skill development and consistent effort tend to be more sustainable over time than goals that depend entirely on external validation or market conditions.

  • Ask yourself two questions. First: if no one ever heard this music, would I still want to make it? If the answer is no, your motivation may be tied more to external validation than intrinsic interest. That is not inherently wrong, but it is worth acknowledging. Second: when I imagine achieving this goal, what specifically will feel different? If you cannot name a concrete internal shift (greater confidence, deeper creative satisfaction, financial stability), the goal may need further examination. Another diagnostic: notice your emotional response when you see someone else achieve a milestone you are pursuing. If you feel inadequate rather than curious, that response may signal that comparison is influencing your aim more than personal priority.

  • This happens a lot, and the time is not wasted. Skills transfer. If you spent two years building audience growth skills and then realized you care more about creative depth than reach, you have not lost those two years. You have gained communication skills, platform literacy, and self-knowledge. The time becomes wasted only if you refuse to acknowledge the shift and continue pursuing an aim that no longer aligns with your priorities. When you notice your definition changing, take time to reassess. Write down your new definition using the same three-part structure from this lesson. Then adjust your focus.

Quick Reference

Definition
Success requires a stated aim; without one, it stays abstract.

Categories
Objective measures outcomes; subjective measures fulfillment.

Control
Effort-based goals sustain motivation better than validation-based ones.

Next Steps

Success is the accomplishment of your stated aim. This lesson asked you to identify that aim, distinguish between measurable achievements and personal fulfillment, and recognize how your definition shapes which skills matter most. Pay particular attention to which of your goals depend on your effort and which depend on factors outside your control.

Now that you have defined success, the next question becomes unavoidable: can you actually make a living doing this? Lesson 2 examines what happened to musicians thirty years ago and why producers are facing the same shift right now.

The Guides are your reference. The app is your journey.