The One Thing Holding You Back From Confidence As A Musician

This is not talked about enough. The musicians who become the most confident and achieve their dream lives don't take every setback personally. 

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Transcript

Why Musicians Take Things Personally

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This is one of the biggest things slowing musicians down from getting the life, the results, the confidence that they want as musicians. And let me tell you what it is. It is taking things personally, taking criticism personally, taking literally anything personally. Okay. Because I'm gonna let you in on a secret. Most things are not personal. Most things are really not personal. And the people who make real growth don't take things personally. They just don't. They move. They continue. Even if it is something that hurts their ego, it hurts like who they are. It makes them feel, oh my gosh, is it actually working? They just continue. They just move. They make decisions, they move. And us as musicians, we are people who have egos. I feel like musicians tend to have egos. And honestly, like, okay, it's fine. It it's oftentimes like because we practice so much and we really want to be good at our instruments. So we also kind of develop a sort of ego, and then we end up getting um getting insulted and and upset and taking things personally that really aren't personal. And that right there is what is slowing you down from getting the life that you want. And we're gonna get into it.

Success Rides On Failure

SPEAKER_00 1:19

So welcome to the confident musician podcast. Let's start by talking about how we get to success. Because oftentimes, as musicians, let's let's let's be so for real right now. Oftentimes, as musicians, we see success and failure as opposites. You either succeed or you fail. You try something, you either succeed or you fail. You play on stage, and it's either a success or a failure, a good performance or a bad performance. But in actuality, what gets you to success is failure. So instead of, and if if this is if you're watching this as a video, you can see the visual, but if you're listening, I'll explain. Instead of having failure on one side, success on the other side, and it's being this or that, in actuality, success is on the line or down the line, and failure is how you get to success. So failure is like the railroad tracks that get you to the end, the destination that is success. So you have to go through failure, failure, failure, failure, failure, failure, failure, failure, failure, success. So instead of it being like, oh, I failed, oh, I succeeded, that being be all and end all, it's actually a journey. And the thing that makes people, musicians, either successes or failures is where you stop on those tracks. Because if you are on the tracks, fail, fail, fail, fail, mistake, mistake, mistake, mistake, and you stop after like five fails or five mistakes or whatever, and you stop and you're like, oh my gosh, is this cut out for me? I don't think so. I'm gonna stop. Then the last thing that happened was a failure. And so then you decide I must be a failure. And then, well, yeah, because you stopped. Then you have to go back. And then probably, let's be honest, down the line, you're gonna go, oh gosh, I really wish I did that thing. And you start again. And you go fail, fail, fail, fail, fail because that's the process. Then you take it personally again, stop, go back. See, you're not gonna get success that way. Instead, we don't take failure personally, we don't take any of this stuff personally, we just continue. So the other, the other version, the other person who succeeds, does fail, fail, fail, fail, fail, fail, fail. They learn number one, they do two things, okay? Number one, they don't take it personally, they actually take it neutrally. Number two, they grow. They learn from it. They go, okay, I failed again. I made a mistake. What do I learn from it? How do I grow? Then they they learn. And then they continue, they continue, fail, fail, fail, fail, fail. They don't stop, they get to success, and they look back and go, well, I couldn't have gotten here without those failures. Because those failures are the things that shaped me into the person, into the musician that I needed to be in order to hold my success.

Identity Shift Beats More Practice

SPEAKER_00 4:26

Because at the end of the day, we always think about this. And I always say this in the confidence program, my program to get musicians confident. I say it all the time. But the thing is, we say that we want specific outcomes, but we're actually not chasing the specific outcomes. We are chasing or becoming the version of us who can actually hold those outcomes. That's the difference. Yes, you want the thing, but you're not gonna get the thing unless you become the version of you who can hold the thing, who doesn't self-sabotage when they have the thing and lose it. Because that that that is that that means that we are not ready to have the thing. And that goes back to the episode about how you're gonna become a confident musician, the idea of identity. And honestly, like this, this is what we talk about in the confidence program. And like when I said the idea of identity, I just got flashbacks to recording the videos of the confidence program because there's an entire module, there's an entire module on identity, how to create the identity that you want to become so that you can have the things that you want to have as a musician. Because we don't get there by solely practicing, we get there by yes, practicing 100%, but also shifting our identity, becoming the version of us who can have those things, who can hold those things, who expects those things, who feels safe with those things. There's an entire module in the confidence program on that. Entire module. There's there's an entire module in the confidence program on that. There's a module about mindset shifting, there's a module about living out this process, about yeah, about creating your identity, about understanding the fact that you need to be that I can't talk. Understanding the fact that you need to be safe, you need to feel safe with success in order to actually have success, or else you are going to continue to just fail and fail and fail. And that all ties into the idea of taking it personally, because taking something personally is the how we hide from failure. It's how we hide from failure.

Lessons, Auditions, And Neutral Feedback

SPEAKER_00 6:32

Because, for instance, okay, let's just say, for instance, um, you're in a you're in a lesson and you have a teacher, and that teacher says something like, okay, you know, you played something for the teacher, and the teacher said, Okay, that's great, um, but you need to do this, that, and the other, and you take it personally. Why have you taken it personally? Because it probably reaffirms beliefs that you have about yourself. If a teacher says, oh my gosh, or well, the teacher probably wouldn't say, oh my gosh, but you know what I mean. If a teacher says, that was a good um performance or whatever, but your high notes were a little out of tune, and in your head you translate that to, oh my gosh, that means I'm a bad musician, then you're taking it personally rather than actually working on your high notes and then being out of tune, looking at it neutrally and going, okay, I'm actually really grateful that this person brought it up, and then working on it, becoming a better musician. That's a difference. That's a difference. And it's also the idea of failure. So, like, let's say you audition for an ensemble, you don't get in. What do you do? You blame other things. You say, oh my gosh, well, I just wasn't a feeling it that day, or oh my gosh, it's probably like rigged, you know, probably like the panel probably has favorites. Oh, it was in a city that's not that's not my city. Um, and so I didn't know anyone there, but they probably all know each other, you know. Okay, maybe that's true. Maybe that's true. But the fact that you went there instead of going, okay, what can I learn from this experience? What can I do better next time? How is this actually serving me? Looking at it neutrally, okay, I failed. Okay, and I mean that's fine. It's probably one of the failures to success, like the railroad tracks that we talked about. How can I look at this neutrally and learn and grow from it? Instead, we are taking it personally, assuming that people have favorites, assuming that you know, it's actually not me. It was just the day. It was, you know, if you're an oboist, we'd love to say, like, my reads weren't working. Sometimes our reads aren't working. I'm gonna be honest, sometimes our reads aren't working, but so maybe that actually isn't a good example. But um the I um that was a very oboist thing of me to say, but anyway, but um, but yeah, it's like the idea of taking things personally, needlessly personally, to protect our own egos. If there is one thing, I say this all the time in the confidence program, leave your ego at the door, leave it at the door. Yes, it protects you. Our egos, all it all our egos do, all our egos do is literally just protect us. That's all they're there for. They're there to protect us because we don't actually like the feeling of discomfort, of maybe not feeling good enough. We don't actually we don't like that feeling. So our egos protect us from feeling that. Our egos protect us from facing those things that we actually need to face as musicians. So then we don't grow, then we take things personally, then we say stuff like, oh, it's probably rigged, or oh, it's probably, you know, etc. etc. Then we say all that stuff, and then we don't grow, and then we wonder why we're not growing. Then we wonder why we're not growing. And this, this stuff, this stuff is what we do in the confidence program. Inside the confidence program, musicians are building confidence in a way that allows them to look at stuff like this neutrally and just move, just continue.

Ego Protection Vs Real Growth

SPEAKER_00 9:59

Because the person, I mean, it's like it's like the um the story of like the rabbit and the the what is it, the turtle and the tortoise and the hare? The tortoise and the hare, right? If you're like like the hare where you move fast, but every time you get tired, you stop. And maybe in in our metaphor, we can say you move, but every time you get rejected, you stop. You take it personally, you stop, compared to um the turtle who just continues, and maybe you know, like in the story, the turtle continues and it doesn't face any like failure or anything. But let's just pretend it does, and it just doesn't take it personally, it just takes it neutrally, and it goes, okay, well, that was something, and I'm learning from it, and I'm moving on. Who wins the race? Who gets there first? Who um stops and takes everything personally, and then just feels so emotional and stressed and upset about everything, and then quits, you know, and goes back to the start, and then a few years down the line or a few months down the line goes, Oh gosh, I really wish I really wish I had the thing that I want. I really wish I had the thing that I want. And then they continue and then but then they stop at failure because they take it personally. Once we as musicians, once we learn to feel safe in becoming who we are becoming, we stop looking at failure as personal, we stop looking at setbacks as personal because we have nothing to protect. When we take things personally, we are protecting our egos. When we show our nervous system that it is safe to grow, though our ego does not actually have to protect us, then we don't take rejection personally, and we just keep moving. And that is what you learn in the confidence program.

Feeling Safe With Success

SPEAKER_00 11:48

It's it's it's all of that, and it is only 98 pounds a month. It is only 98 pounds a month, and if you pay annually, it is 73 pounds a month. That's it for all of for like actually implementing these things, you know. Because yeah, taking things personally, that's how you slow down. That is how you slow down. So, what we gotta do is we gotta look at things neutrally, you learn from them, you grow from them, you notice how they affect you. Because honestly, if you are feeling like, oh my gosh, I feel so overwhelmed, I feel so upset. I am taking it personally, notice where that is in your body, understand where that is, you regulate through it again. Another thing that we do in the confidence program, there are literal regulation exercises that you just follow. You don't have to figure anything out with that. You literally just follow. I've made videos explaining it and doing it. You regulate through it and then you move and you will go so much faster. You will go so much faster than if you just sit there and take every single little thing personally. Okay.

Regulation, Speed, And Closing

SPEAKER_00 13:05

So honestly, that's the whole idea. Stop taking things personally. The people who grow, the people who make real growth, the people who build real confidence, the people who build real things, the people who get the things that they want, as musicians, they don't take the setbacks personally. They don't assign meaning to them that means anything about them as musicians. They just don't. They just don't. Okay. That's about it for this episode. If you enjoyed this episode, um, please do like it. Like it, follow, follow the podcast. If you're um, if you're on like a podcast platform, give it a review. If you um are on YouTube, give it a comment. If you if you are listening to this and you're like, man, I should focus on this. I should, I know, I know that I can get to this confident version of me. I know that I can do this, I should really focus on this, and you don't want to waste any time trying to figure out how, join the confidence program. Join the musicians who are doing it. Okay, that is gonna be in the description, that's gonna be in the show notes. Join it. I can't wait to see you inside. It's a great program. Truly, truly, truly. All right. But other than that, I will see you next time.