This article is going to require you to do a little soul searching. For some people, that’s not easy. The reason is simple. When you take a good, hard, long look at yourself, sometimes you don’t like what you see. It’s a lot easier to just ignore the problem and hope it’ll go away. The problem is, the problem never does go away. So we’re going to be asking the question, “What’s holding you back?”
I figure there is no better way to get my point across and maybe get you to take an honest look at yourself than to use myself as a self study. Yeah, I’m going to be putting it all out there. I may not like what I ultimately have to admit to myself, but it just might be what I need to make it over the hump.
So let’s begin.
On a technical level, what holds me back is that I hate technology. That might sound weird coming from somebody whose first job was as a computer programmer but hear me out and you’ll understand why I hate it.
First off, there is the learning curve. For example, the other day I got Optimize Press in order to create a sales page for my new music product. It took me forever just to figure out how to launch the darn application from my blog menu. I won’t even get into what a nightmare it was to figure out how to edit and add things. Actions that, to me, would seem to be intuitive are not so intuitive because of the funky way a particular application decides to handle things that’s completely different from another application.
Certainly you have to understand what I’m saying. I can’t be the only person in the world frustrated with the learning curve of some products. But you see, and this is what’s really holding me back in this area, the frustration comes not so much from the learning curve but from my impatience. I need to be able to sit down in front of a piece of software, especially if it’s music software, and figure it out right away WITHOUT reading the manual. No, I did not read the Optimize Press manual at all. I just dove in. So my underlying problem is that I have no patience. It’s not that I hate the technology. It’s that I don’t want to take the time to learn it properly.
Ah, but why? Why do I have no patience? See, now we’re getting down to the real underlying problem. See, the reason I have no patience is because my life, right now, is very uncertain. My business has been in the toilet for a couple of years now. I know a lot of musicians struggle but this is ridiculous. So my financial situation has dictated that I need to have things happen quickly. When you need to have things happen quickly you lose your patience.
Really, do you think that if I were independently wealthy I would care how long it took me to learn a piece of software or how to program a new VST synth or how to use a new notation program? I would welcome the diversion. I’d spend as much time as I had to on that stupid manual just to give me something to do so that I wouldn’t go crazy. See, I love learning new things. I just don’t love learning them when I’m under time pressure. And right now, I am under time pressure the likes of which I haven’t known since the early days of my marriage when I lost my first job. At age 56 after almost 30 years of marriage (this come August 25) I’m not used to this feeling anymore. It sucks and I don’t like it.
So ironically, because of my lack of patience, due to my situation, I am being held back because I’m not taking the time to do things properly. When you don’t do things properly, you don’t succeed. So it becomes a self fulfilling prophesy.
But technology and my patience level aren’t the only things holding me back. As if that wasn’t enough, there’s more.
Next we have something called confidence. When my business was super successful, I had confidence in spades. In fact, when something didn’t work out quite right I was actually stunned. How could this fail? Granted, I didn’t have many failures, but when I did, I was genuinely stunned.
Today, my confidence is shot. I have the opposite feeling about things. I’m convinced that nothing I’m going to do is ever going to be truly successful again, that I’ve had my day in the sun and it’s over.
What a load of nonsense.
I’m certainly no stupider now than I was in 2009 when my business peaked. If anything, I have learned so much over the last 11 years that I’ve been running my own business, I should be able to turn things around with little trouble if any at all.
But having things crash and burn around you can really shake your confidence. And as a result, you become paralyzed with fear. What if I do this and it’s wrong? What if I make the wrong choice? What if I choose the wrong affiliate program? What if?
This project I’m working on? I am sweating bullets over every aspect of it. I am literally scared to death of making the wrong decision about something. I keep forgetting that if I do make the wrong decision about something, I can always correct it. Failure is never permanent until you’re dead. I have to keep reminding myself of that.
So if the sales page I put together isn’t right, I can always redo it. Nothing says I have to keep this one forever.
Essentially, these are the things that are holding me back. Notice I said nothing about my actual talent. I may not be John Williams, but I know my music is good enough for certain markets. I have to hang onto that. Otherwise, if I truly believe I have no talent at all, then I might as well just pack it in now.
I’m not ready to do that.
Are you?
Take an honest look at yourself in the mirror. What’s holding you back?
Once you can admit what it is to yourself, you’re half way to being able to conquer it.
For The Love Of Music,
Steven “Wags” Wagenheim