Just like any other skill, keeping your chops up as a songwriter is a job that is never done. But with that said, it can become fairly easy to fall into complacency if you stop honing your writing skills. Below, we take a look at three ways to keep yourself growing as a songwriter.      

1. Have Others Hold You Accountable

When you add a new routine to your life that you believe will help you achieve a goal, you might need some outside motivation to help you stick with it. For example, you might add a routine to work on your songs Mondays - Fridays from 6pm to 7pm. If you feel adding that routine is important, but you're afraid you might bail on it, you can tell one of your friends, "I'll be working on my songs Mondays - Fridays from 6pm to 7pm. After each of those sessions, I'm going to email you to let you know I did it. If I miss a session, I'm going to give you five bucks!" That can be a powerful motivator for you to get things done. Another great way to keep yourself motivated is to find like-minded people and form a meetup group. So you, and two other songwriting friends can work on your music separately, and then you can get together once a week to discuss what you've accomplished and when you worked on it. Having to report to others, while they also report to you can be a powerful motivator. If you're interested in starting a meetup group, but don't have any other friends who write songs, a great place to start would be to go to some open mics in your area. The more you play and hang out with other songwriters, the more relationships you'll develop. At that point, it'll be easy to get together. You can also take your efforts online. There are a ton of songwriting forums out there. If you put "songwriting forum" into a search engine you'll see a handful of contenders right away. Handle the forums the same way you would handle in-person conversations. Start conversations and develop relationships. If you just go into a forum and put up a post asking for something you want, you're much less likely to get it than if you get involved in conversations and get to know some of the people in the forums. Once you've developed some relationships with people online, you can either start a meetup group in person, if the people are in your area, or you can meet up every week via video chat.  

2. Collaborate With Another Songwriter

Aside from simply meeting up and discussing what you've accomplished, you can also collaborate with other songwriters. Collaboration is great, because if you find a collaboration partner with complementary skills, you can create some great songs, just by having more skill points covered than you would have alone. Also, when two or more people start talking about ideas on a subject, there's a likeliness that new ideas will come from it, that neither of them would have considered on their own.  

3. Use Affirmations

Daily affirmations are another way to keep yourself motivated and working towards your goals. Our subconscious minds tend to take the information we feed it and act on it. If we leave them to their own accord, it can be an easy way to let negative thoughts slip in, if we're predispositioned to think that way. For that reason, it's a good idea to start everyday either writing out, or repeating aloud affirmations about your songwriting, or your life in general.    

Your Turn to Sound Off!

What are some of the ways you keep yourself growing as a songwriter?

Let us know in the comment section below!