Complete this 5-second music career test:
True or false: To attain all the music career opportunities you want, you must overcome tons of competition.
True or false: To truly become successful in the music business, you must beat out thousands of competitors.
Both of these statements are completely false!
The music business really isn’t filled with tons of competition. Music companies are in dire need of new musicians to offer great contracts to, but have a hard time finding such musicians. You read that right.
Extremely successful pro musicians don’t think about competing with others. They invest their time into becoming the kind of musician that other music industry types are looking for. This helps them get the music business opportunities that others don’t get/don’t know exist.
What makes someone the right kind of musician who gets the best opportunities? Specifically, what must you do to become this kind of musician?
Why Fearing Music Business Competition Hurts Your Music Career
Here’s how it is: The majority of musicians put an end to their music careers way before they even see a small amount of success. They are under the impression that they are up against massive levels of competition. As a result, they quit too soon because they are intimidated by the overwhelming (and imaginary) competition they believe they are facing.
Competition? Where Is The Competition?
Beating competition in the music business is actually very easy to do. You simply have to remove all fear from your mindset. This becomes much easier once you know who your competitors really are.
Most musicians have bad attitudes, mindsets and habits that make success totally impossible for them. These things include:
1. Being Afraid To Fail. A lot of musicians are afraid of what will happen if they try to get into the music business and it doesn’t work out. They fear they will not earn enough money through music alone. They fear that they might look like a failure, be too old, not have enough talent, not get enough opportunities in their local area and other things.
They focus all their time and energy on not failing rather than succeeding. They become paralyzed in their music careers or form backup plans that take them further away from music.
2. Being Afraid Of Success (Yes, That’s Right). The kinds of musicians who fear success, ruin things for themselves just as they reach the brink of a big. They worry about these things:
– Negative thoughts others will have of them when they become successful.
– If they are even worthy of big success.
– If they will be able to sustain success after they reach it.
This fear keeps many musicians with tons of potential from ever achieving their goals.
3. Small Amounts Of Passion And Desire. Most musicians think they want to be successful, but really don’t want it bad enough to take major action. Most aren’t working actively to build success. They sit back waiting for success to just happen for them. Others become reckless in their approach. They accept the life of a starving artists, expecting success to come from struggle.
People in the music industry can tell whether your desire for success is real. They are very good at observing both your intentions and the actions you take. Note: wanting success really bad doesn’t necessarily mean struggling for years before you make it in this industry.
4. Procrastination. Many musicians talk a lot about how they don’t know what they need to do to become successful. Truth is, it’s not too hard to figure this out. Making yourself actually DO the right things is a lot harder.
Here is an example: almost any musician would agree that a music career mentor would help their careers grow at a faster rate. However, only a small amount of musicians seek mentoring of any kind. Everyone else says: “I can’t afford to pay for it” or “I don’t have time for it” or “I’m just not prepared for mentoring right now” or “I’ll try it later”.
These are all rationalizations to make it easier to procrastinate. When it comes down to it, we all make time/have money for important things. This in mind, it’s a lot easier to make excuses than take action.
5. Lacking Commitment. If you want to achieve big goals, it’ll take perseverance and dedication. A lot of musicians stop pursuing their goals when faced with struggle and difficulty, causing their dedication to fade over time.
99.9% of musicians have or do at least some of these things. These qualities instantly disqualify them from becoming successful in the music industry.
The Main Key To Tons Of Music Career Success
Want to become one of the top musicians in the world? Overcome the fundamental issues that destroy your music career success. This quickly puts you above your perceived competition. Yes, that’s all you need to do!
How to end self-sabotage in your music career and prepare yourself for success in the music business:
1. Start choosing the things that matter most. You need to choose to take action on things that move your career ahead. Find out what you need to do to become successful. Then dedicate yourself to taking frequent action on what you learn.
Understand the difference between an expense and an investment. An expense removes money from your pocket and costs time/resources. This money never comes back. Paying rent, buying food or paying your phone bill are examples of expenses. Spending time on Facebook, playing games or watching TV are also examples of expenses.
An investment is something you invest your money (or time) into in order to get long-term value on the back end. Investing time to learn how the music business works, getting music career coaching, and joining a music industry mastermind group are all examples of making investments into your music career.
You must try to eliminate expenses and increase the amount of investments you make.
2. Replace any time you say “I should” with “I will”. For example: “I should invest more into my music career” becomes “I will invest more into my music career”. “I should stop procrastinating on reaching my goals” becomes “I will stop procrastinating on reaching my goals”. Saying “should” gives you way out of taking action. This mindset lacks the urgency needed to take action and succeed.
3. Pro musicians who become successful have more urgency than most people. They say “I WILL invest more time and energy into my music career”, “I WILL stop procrastinating” and “I WILL learn more about the music industry.” This kind of mindset refuses to accept failure. It gives you unstoppable motivation to do whatever it takes to achieve your musical goals.
These basic changes in attitude make it easy to beat your competitors and become a successful professional musician.