I’ve been asking myself a lot of questions lately to make sure I’m staying on track with my creative career.
The chaos of the world will commandeer your focus and change the trajectory of your life if you’re not paying attention.
So today I’m sharing five questions that have helped me recently and that may help you stay on track with your music career.
Question #1: Are my actions, goals, and ultimate vision truly aligned?
We often find ourselves working on stuff we think will help us get to where we want, but when we take a closer look, we realise… maybe it doesn’t.
I go through stages where I’m doing things for my business that ‘you’re just supposed to do’.
But when I stop and ask myself what I really want my life to look like, these things aren’t necessary—at least not now.
If you’re trying to build a music career, ask yourself what that ideally looks like.
I hear something like this all the time:“I want millions of monthly listeners, playing to tens of thousands in huge stadiums, and a massive fan base that buys my merch.”
Well, that’s great. But do you know what kind of life that is?
Do you want to be constantly busy, dealing with people you don’t like, doing things you don’t like and working incredibly hard in general?
Because that stuff comes with that lifestyle.
Or is it more that you want to be able to make a comfortable living playing music with enough listeners and fans to support your lifestyle?
Because you can approach that differently, and it may or may not better align with the lifestyle you want.
I’m not saying you should prefer either.
I’m encouraging you to ask yourself what you truly want, if you’re prepared to do the work required, and if you’re currently doing the work required.
Again, are your actions, goals, and ultimate vision aligned?
Question #2: When I release a creative project (like a song), is the attention I’m giving the release in alignment with how I feel about the work?
Do you pour endless energy into your songs but then none into the marketing of it?
Music marketing is a separate skill from music making.
Creating the song is not marketing the song—as much as we all wish that could be the case!
If it’s important to you that your music is heard, a few pieces of content isn’t going to cut it.
This song you put your heart and soul into deserves a marketing campaign that’s taken as seriously as the song.
That doesn’t mean it has to be complicated (and I know it’s exhausting).
Your marketing campaign can still be mostly just content if you want.
But you have to understand that the less energy you put into getting it out there—regardless of how much energy you put into the song itself—the more underwhelming the result will be.
This is your reminder that if you love the creative work you’re doing and you’re proud of it, you’ve got to push it hard.
Question #3: Am I taking advantage of all my skills to help build my creative career?
If you’re like me, you probably have multiple creative skills or interests.
Are you showing these to the world or hiding them away?
Incorporating your unique combination of skills and interests can be a powerful way to differentiate yourself on social media.
For example, in my online presence I’m incorporating:
- My love for music (and soon I’ll be including some actual music in my content)
- Writing
- Animation
- Personal development
- Productivity
- Graphic design
- Marketing & branding
- Learning
- Business
This helps me love what I do.
For the most part, I’m creatively fulfilled from this alone and I can make a living from it.
So, ask yourself: How can I integrate my other skills and interests into my online presence to help me stand out and bring more meaning to it?
Question #4: Do I need to zoom in or zoom out?
When I’m trying to improve at something, I frequently miss important info that will help me progress because I’m either too focused on something specific or not focused enough.
Let’s use social media for musicians as an example:
A lot of musicians I talk to are overly concerned with things like post time, hashtags, the number of views they get relative to their following, etc.
They’re caught on trivial things that barely matter.
In these cases, these musicians need to zoom out to look at the big picture.
It’s the quality and effectiveness of the content, traffic, and developing relationships with others on the platform that matters infinitely more.
Post time and hashtags are “1%ers”—they’re not going to make or break your success on social media.
On the other hand, I’ll also talk to musicians who never go deep.
They’ll get an overview of how things work—which is important—but they’ll stop there.
These musicians will understand you need great content, to be consistent, to constantly bring new people in, and to develop relationships…
…but they have no idea how to do that.
And in these cases, these musicians need to zoom in and attend to each of these elements:
- What makes great content and how do I make it?
- What are the different traffic sources and how do I learn to make them work for me?
- What do others need from me in order to continue to support me?
We need to be able to zoom in and out as needed.
Sometimes it’s about getting perspective to make sure the overall system is set up correctly and to ensure we’re not missing important info that will help us progress.
Other time it’s about getting specific—tweaking the individual elements of the system to make sure they’re running.
Look at the areas with which you’re currently stuck.
Are you super zoomed in or zoomed out?
Try the opposite for a while and see what happens.
Question #5: Would I stop for myself?
As uncomfortable as it might be, there’s nothing more powerful than being brutally honest with yourself.
If you’re putting yourself out there on social media, honestly assess whether you’d stop scrolling for your own content.
And if you answer yes, why?
This is an important step; we humans find ways to justify our answers if we want it to be right, so you’ve got to be real here.
Your answer to why cannot be “it’s great music, I always stop for great music.”
That’ll rarely cut it in the context of social media.
If you don’t have a clear reason why anyone would stop and pay attention to your content (eg. it’s super helpful, entertaining, inspiring, or emotional), would it make sense for you to be getting great results?
People are ruthless on social media, including you.
Keep this in mind when you create for these platforms.
It’s frustrating and takes a while to get a handle on it, but once you learn to see things through the eyes of others, you’ll make a lot more progress with your content.
I hope these get you thinking this week.
They’ve helped me a lot of recently, and hopefully they’ll help you.
As always, if you’re stuck and need some personal help, you can check out your options here.
And as always, you’ve got this 🙂
All the love,
Alex
