Hey – Hope you are having a great week!
Also hope you enjoyed my last blog and have been able to focus on your music career goals without too many distractions!
In this blog I want to talk to you about procrastination. What is procrastination? The Oxford Dictionary defines it as: deferring action. The 'crastinate' part of the word comes from the Latin meaning 'of tomorrow'. So if you defer action until tomorrow – then there is a chance that you will never take action at all – coz as you all know 'tomorrow' never comes!
When you procrastinate (and yes I do too!), you are avoiding doing something – even if you know that what you are avoiding will be good for you. For example, you may have sent a producer a sample of your music and you have been told to ring him for his feedback. You may be procrastinating around making that essential call – putting it off each day and making excuses as to why you haven't the time to call him or stating that he will be busy and won't have the time to talk to you anyway.
We make all the excuses under the sun for blocking our way to achieving our desired music career goals. And procrastination can become a habit!
You can identify when you are procrastinating when you have internal or external dialogues such as:
You'll do it soon
You'll just finish listening to this CD and then you'll give that producer a call
You'll send that demo off tomorrow
You'll send the demo off when you've written your biog – you'll write your biog once you've had your photo taken – you'll get your photo taken soon!
And so on…
When you are in the grip of procrastination often other symptoms show up such as:
You feel tired or restless
You can become irritable and fractious with other people
You can start to overeat – or comfort eat
You can go over and over and round in circles thinking about the situation that you are procrastinating about
You can become weepy and highly sensitive
You can become critical about yourself and get depressed
If your procrastination does become habitual then your ideas for your music, your half-started songs and your ultimate dreams for your music career will come to a stand-still.
So what can you do to stop procrastinating on your music career projects? The following exercise may help you:
Think of a time when you were successful in a music project? And then go on to answer the following questions:
Did you want to undertake the music project?
How did you do it?
What helped you do it?
What thoughts went through your head before you attempted the music project?
How did you feel about the music project before you attempted it?
What thoughts were going through your head as you were going through the process of the music project?
How did you feel once you had completed the music project?
Now compare your answers to how you are currently thinking and feeling about your present music project that you are procrastinating about.
Do you actually want to do your current project? If your answer is No – then this is probably why you are procrastinating in the first instance. What are your beliefs about the current music project that might make you not want to undertake it? Are your beliefs true or valid?
If you do want to undertake your current music project, what energy and experiences can you take from your previously successful project and replicate with your current one?
By answering all the above questions you are arming yourself with a lot of knowledge – knowledge that can help you move forward with your present music project – by looking at the positives of your previous successes you know that you can be focussed, committed, decisive and effective.
So it is important to use your strengths and build on them, instead of focussing on your weakness that stop you from moving forward and achieving your music career goals.
Hope you have found this useful – the subject of self-sabotage, that includes procrastination, is huge and I could go on and on – but should you need extra help to work through your areas of procrastination, then do get in touch.
All the best for now and good luck ?
Linz x