At the begginning of the year I posted my goals for stand up in the coming year. Being as today is my one year anniversary as a stand up comedian and also the half way point of the year, I’m comparing my stated goals with what I’ve done to date. Go public accountability!
BLACK text is my original goal, and BOLD text is my update.
Performing:
- Get on stage 150 times this year
To date, I’ve been on stage 144 times this year - Submit an entry to 2 comedy festivals / comedy contests this year
I submitted to two festivals, still waiting to hear back - Perform at 3 college shows
Zero college shows so far, although I’ve done 3 prom shows for high school kids. I plan on really starting to do the college shows in October. - Do 50 shows in front of a real (people that are not comedians) audience (barking for time counts for this)
I’ve done 113 shows with real audiences - Practice 10 minutes of my material outloud each day, without notes
I have been practicing 6 days a week on average (between being on stage and practicing at home)
Producing:
- Start producing a recurring show
My pending move to LA in August caused me to delay the start of this, but it’s still on the agenda
Writing:
- Write 100 blog posts
I have 149 posts this year as of today. However, when I set this goal, I wasn’t planning on doing a performance critique of every set… without the performance critique posts I’d be a lot closer to 30… In the next six months, I want to post more comedy stories, skills and techniques instead of just posting performance critiques of my sets - Write (something, anything) every day
I’m writing 3-4 days a week, but not every day - Write one spec script
I have yet to start a spec script - Write 5 short sketches
I wrote one short sketch thus far. This goal should be achieved by the end of July as I’m taking a three week sketch comedy writing class.
Learning:
- Take an improv class
I completed a level one improv class and will be spending all of July in an intensive 4 week improv program.
Traffic & Marketing:
- Get my facebook fan page up to 150 fans
I’m currently at 39 fans. Not on pace to achieve this goal. Go here to become my fan on facebook and to help me achieve my goal 🙂 - Get 50 RSS Subscribers
I’m currently at 15 RSS subscribers. Not on pace to achieve this goal… - Have 200 unique visitors a month to the blog
In April, May and June I’ve averaged a little over 200 visitors a month to my site
Overall grade for halfway through the year: B
The good news is that I can still achieve all my goals for the year but I’m not halfway done with each and everyone of them at this point. I’m performing way ahead of the pace I set for myself, I’m taking more comedy classes than I planned to and my web visitors are going up. However, I’m not writing enough, haven’t started to produce my own show and don’t have as many Facebook Fans and RSS Subscribers as I’d like. (These last two internet metrics aren’t that important to me at this point as I’m trying to spend the majority of my time on getting funnier than on marketing myself.)
Awesome job, man. I’ve been really impressed with the amount of effort you’ve clearly put into everything this year. If you can sustain this and continually get smarter about comedy and what to put your energy into, you’ll be money.