Lately, I’ve had the opportunity to network with some
wonderful musicians. It was great to share stories and talk music. I always
find it to be very inspiring! Everyone needs those “breaths of fresh air” to get
them energized. I really needed it! I’m still practicing and writing…more than
ever. I’m very excited over some of my newer music. I’ve been working with
various software, that has opened up a whole new palette of fun. The writing
process is now WAY more efficient for me and allows for more creativity at a
higher level. Now, I’m just searching for my dream band. It would be great if
they’d show up today! Patience is a virtue…and I’ve yet to master it.
I decided that I wanted to write this blog post on success.
I realize that I discuss various aspects of success and achieving dreams, quite
often, but it is so important. It is a huge aspect of how I am pursuing my
music career. It is also something that comes up often when I speak with other
musicians and those that are considering a career change. It is something that
we tend to skew with incorrect thinking. I speak from personal experience! I
also think that everyone can benefit from learning more about success, since we
all seek it on some level.
Success has nothing to do with achieving a degree in a field
that you don’t love. Success is NOT about choosing a job just because it yields
a large paycheck. It is not about entering an occupation for the sake of
status. Success is not about working a job that makes you miserable. It is not
about having the typical life with a wife and 2.5 kids, just because your
family expected that. Success has never been about following a path that
someone else thinks is best for you. Yet, we lie to ourselves. We lie to our friends
and families. We say things about how happy we will be when we have the large
paycheck, the largest office, the house, the fancy cars, the wife, and what
others perceive to be “the good life.” We quietly seek acceptance by fulfilling
other people’s dreams for our lives. This mindset is what destroys the best of
intentions.
There is a man that goes to his job each and every day. He
hates his job but sticks with this career because “everyone” (family/friends) says
that he does well and they just can’t imagine him doing anything else. He also
feels pressured into his job since he went to the trouble of getting a degree
and spent many years training for this career. He has a respectable position
with a decent income and benefits. He has had great success in his career since
he likes to do everything well and fears failure. From the outside, everyone
thinks that he is very successful, but deep down…he hates his life. He knows
that he is actually capable of doing his job even better, but he just does what
he needs to do to keep the successful appearance moving along. This all tears
away at his spirit and messes with his mind. He knows he is capable of more and
has hidden dreams of what his perfect world would look like. However, he
continues to make choices in his life that are not about what he wants. He
allows others to pressure him into living a certain life. His professional and
personal lives are a lie.
Success is something that comes from inside of you. Success
is about being true to who you are and believing that you have just as much
right to live a great life as anyone else. It is about standing up for yourself
and going after the things that you truly want. It is about failing and not
giving up. Success comes when you pursue your dreams and refuse to trade them
in for the sake of fulfilling someone else’s vision for your life. Success
demands that you climb over every hurdle while keeping your eyes on your dream.
Success makes you fight for what you want, because things mean so much more
when you have to struggle. Real success rewards those that refuse to trade in
their dreams on something that seemed easier to achieve. Most people have not
achieved real success. They’ve traded in their dreams on something that was
viewed as “the sensible thing to do.”
There is one factor that turns people away from true
success. This “bad seed” that takes root in the mind, has turned many people
away from reaching their full potential. It destroys dreams daily. It causes
people to make incredibly poor decisions. It is responsible for ruining lives. People
try to blame others for the fact that they gave up, or say that they didn’t
have the resources to achieve their goals. People have many excuses as to why
they didn’t “make it” and completely ignore what was actually responsible for
their shortcoming. This ignorance just helps to fuel more misery and creates a
“snowball effect” of more bad decisions. People end up living fake lives due to
one sneaky mind game. Fear.
Fear is that “voice of reason” that says:
Ex. 1 “Go
be a lawyer because you’ll definitely have a job and plenty of money…don’t
bother with performing music. That is just a hobby. You’ll never make it. It is
too difficult. Can you afford to waste so much time on this pursuit? How will
you ever retire? You need to find a real job. Music isn’t a stable career. How
will you support yourself? Everyone thinks I should teach music because that is
a normal career and the pay is stable. At least I’d still be working in
music…sort of. I guess that is better than nothing. I don’t want to disappoint
anyone. I don’t want people to think less of me.”
Ex. 2 “You
should marry her. She is nice. You know you’re getting older now. What if you
end up alone? You’ll probably never meet anyone else. You’ve been with her for
a while now. You’ve been through so much together. She is pressuring me to get
married. What if she leaves me? Her family is so nice to me. My parents love
her. They assume we are getting married. How can I possibly let everyone down?”
I think that most people can relate with these two examples.
You can easily see how a life can be drastically changed. Consider how
miserable most people are with their careers and their marriages. They failed
to wait for what they really wanted. They allowed fear to make their decisions.
They now live a lie.
It is easy for me to sit here and write this now. I used to
feel this fear. That voice tried to ruin my life. I hear it creep in
periodically, but I refuse to let it take over. Why? Because I believe that I
have a talent for music. I have confidence that I am good at it. I love the
hours I spend practicing, writing, singing, and recording. I work so hard…and
yet, even though there are many frustrations, I still love it. I want to do it
even if I don’t make a million dollars or win a Grammy. I will continue to try
to be as good as I can possibly be and take my performing as far as I can go. I
will not give up. I’ve already achieved success by staying true to who I am.
I’m happy. I’m satisfied with having this talent and getting the opportunity to
achieve higher levels of music each day. I would never trade what I do for a
job that pays me more, bores me to tears, and fulfills what others think I
should do for a living. As I’ve said before in previous posts, no one has the
right to decide your life for you. It is not wrong to know what you love to do
and then pursue it. It is okay to try it and fail! It is NOT okay to fail and
then give up on your dreams. All successful people have pushed through their
failures. We need to quit thinking that easy is right. We need to help people
up from their failures by encouraging them to move forward with their dreams.
We need to stop thinking that the top paying, “normal” careers are our only
options. We need to make our big decisions based off of what we know about
ourselves versus what others think they know about us. We need to stop living
in fear. We need to believe that we are worth more than lies. Stop settling for
jobs that make you unhappy. Stop settling for relationships that are mediocre.
Stop living your life the way others tell you to live. Yes, it is terrifying to
change because that voice of fear has its claws in you. However, you get one
life. It is YOUR fault if you choose to waste it.
