Value Your Time. Respect Your Work
It’s all right letting yourself go, as long as you can get yourself back.
—Mick Jagger
Work Reflects on Health, Health Reflects on Work
Although the overall common perception might not suggest this, there is actually a noticeable difference between the operational approach required in the entertainment industry in order for positive career progress to be achieved and the regular working specifics of a typical, standard day job. Each market segment has its own specific characteristics and requirements that the respective participants must comply with in order to ensure positive career growth. When involved in the music industry, a person is investing their time and efforts in order to generate results, rather than simply fulfilling a certain role’s requirements. It is the ultimate application of the quality-over-quantity principle. As such, an artist cannot afford to perform their respective activities automatically; every action requires maximum dedication and attention in order to deliver the preferable final product. The consequences of such a working dynamic are substantial; the exploitation of the artist’s capacity to its full extent is an exhausting process, both physically and mentally, and for the sake of the final product’s quality, the artist should be aware and always appreciate the fact that their condition has a considerable role in the creative and professional cycle of a career in the music industry. Hence, the ability of a person to understand when to take a break, relax, and rest is much needed, as they will never be in a position to create the best possible product that they are capable of designing when they are not in the best possible condition. Overworking is never a solution, so you should learn the specifics of your limits and understand the importance of unwinding and giving your body and mind a chance to rejuvenate, so you can recharge and be ready to take advantage of your full potential once the right time approaches. It is likely that once you get yourself involved and get used to a heavily loaded cycle of activities benefiting your career, you will find it harder and more difficult to not spend time working on your progress, but in such situations you just have to remember that performing activities while you are not in the proper form to do so is only a waste of time and effort. Therefore, always make sure to take a break and give your body a chance to restore its full power when needed. Do not compromise your health for results, because you need your health in order to generate the results, which you should be aiming to achieve. Due to the incredibly overwhelming amount of personal commitment required for an artist to develop and maintain a sustainable career in the industry, you should make sure that you are always preserving a healthy mental health state as well. The levels of stress or anxiety that you might be facing on a daily basis can significantly damage your self-awareness, creativity, and drive for success, and moments of this sort are the periods when a person is most vulnerable and allows unrealistic fears to negatively influence their mindset. This is why you should always find time to give yourself some rest and the opportunity to spend time in peace; ignore your fears and trust your true intuition, so you can ensure that you are in the best possible condition to reach your full potential when it comes to taking advantage of opportunities that can eventually advance your career.
Sustaining Motivation and Overcoming Fatigue
Getting to the successful level is easy, but sustaining it is hard. Contrary to popular belief, gaining attention and interest from record companies, managers, booking agents, press, and receiving opportunities for expansion through them does not mark your success in the music industry. It actually indicates the launch of your actual career in the full meaning of the word. There is a common misconception that getting recognized, noticed, and provided with the opportunity to dedicate your time to a full-time career in the music business is the largest obstacle to be tackled for an artist on the path to success. While this stage of development is indeed incredibly challenging, difficult, and hard, an artist should be aware of the fact that their career only actually starts when they get the chance to step on the highest possible platform, because the only thing harder than establishing your brand and associating it with high standards is maintaining this status for a long period of time and sustaining the high production value of the product that you are generating. Releasing four strong singles over two years and performing highly energetic shows while your eyes are strictly and most concentrated on your goal is doable, but nourishing constant motivation and drive to keep doing what you are doing following the highest possible standards can be a very draining and emotionally exhausting process that you might not be able to keep up with. The worst thing that can happen for an artist is to see their goals achieved and expectations met. Fulfilling your goals and desires could be actually one of the most strenuous and hard concepts that an artist might be in need to adjust their mentality to, considering that such turn of events completely changes the dynamics in an act’s career path and mental state. Hence, it is important for an act to be anticipating such turn of events and, apart from the rational goal for achieving success, to work toward an ongoing desire, such as self-improvement from a personal and professional stand point, which is a flexible goal that cannot be affected by any external circumstances and outside situations related to the artist’s career and can be used as a guiding light for progress once the other circumstances surrounding the artist’s career cannot act as an incentive for additional personal and professional growth.
The music industry provides a strongly unstable and rapidly polarizing gradient of evolution and progress to its participants, which often places the artists in situations of radically different nature. Dealing with such hard-to-predict circumstances often can have a very negative impact and influence on the artist’s mentality due to the sudden and stressful changes that might occur to a career unexpectedly and that require immediate action and consideration. An act might find itself on top of the world at one point and then experience an overwhelming career fall right after that, which is a very complicated and challenging concept to get used to and familiar with; hence, an artist must possess the ability to anticipate this sort of developments.
In order to do that, there is one principle that every performer should always consider—the highest and strongest point of every act’s career comes after their worst one, and that is why only the personalities that possess significant persistence and strong will to undergo difficult experiences at some point in their career find themselves successful at the end of the day. You cannot let your guard down. Failures beget obstacles, and success beget obstacles in the music business. Therefore, you are not in a position, at any point, to not be aware of the circumstances or the situation that you are in. The music industry is extremely inconsistent when it comes to the growth of your profile; you can reach the highest highs and lowest lows in one day. Your biggest success might come just after the worst point of your career; however, the opposite is highly likely as well; you can hit rock bottom right after you have thought that you have achieved the success that you have always been working for. The better your career is developing, the more significant the magnitude of your actions will become; therefore, you have to be extremely self-aware, cautious, and careful, because—regardless of where you are with your career—there will always be obstacles and problems that might have crucial and dramatic consequences if not approached in the most careful manner possible. Nothing is guaranteed. It does not matter how well or how poorly you do in this realm; everything can change in a second, so you should be thankful every single day about the position that you are in and treat it with respect, attention, and professionalism. You have to live with a sense of gratitude, because in an instant everything can change.
Value Your Accomplishments and Work
Follow and appreciate your progress. For the sake of your creative state, mentality, and motivation, you must always make sure to occasionally determine and assess the positive results that you have managed to generate with your work and appreciate them. Considering the hectic and intense routines that a well-performing act should commit to in order to be in a position to produce improving and beneficial results for their career, at certain times it would be very difficult to properly appreciate and evaluate the level you have reached. It would be easy to minimize the tempo of your progress, which is a prerequisite for experiencing a significant amount of satisfaction and fulfillment leading to a decrease in the levels of drive and enthusiasm that you have to put in your efforts in order to become successful. Simply try to cease your activity for a moment on a regular basis and observe your career, actions, and results not from a subjective point of view, and you will be amazed to learn of the progress that your hard work and dedication have achieved while you have been immersed in the process of approaching and completing your plans. Do not overthink and spend your energy on revisiting past situations or worrying about future outcomes. Do not overanalyze. Concentrate totally on your actions at this particular moment, because only they matter. Thinking about consequences is thinking negatively. Sleep and take care for yourself. Never let yourself, your life, productivity, and well-being be a victim of stress. Stay healthy to be productive. Be productive to be successful.