People who are successful have usually worked very hard for a very long time to make it happen. Michael Jackson’s first solo album was not “Off the Wall”. He had released four solo albums on Motown before that. No Doubt had been together for 10 years before “Don’t Speak” broke to mainstream. During those ten years the band had gone through the suicide of their first lead vocalist, Tony and Gwen’s split up and two unsuccessful album releases. Kid Rock was signed and dropped by three labels and funded the fourth album himself before finding success with “Devil Without a Cause”. Lady Gaga was signed and dropped by Def Jam before she had the chance to release anything. And don’t forget The Beatles, who were turned down by numerous labels, before being signed to Parlophone – a small subsidiary of EMI that specialised in novelty music.
The Secret Ingredient
What’s the one most important thing you need to do in order to become successful?
Have talent?
Be well-connected?
Work really hard?
All the above are definitely needed but none of the above matters if you don’t make a clear mental decision first.
Commitment.
Without commitment your talent never has the chance to fully blossom. You probably won’t stick around for long enough to make the connections and you’re certainly not going to have the stamina to work hard and see through the hard times. Commitment is the big secret behind every success story. Whether it was to your art, your career or your relationship.
Dreams are only dreams before you start to take action to make them come true. What kind of a dream can be achieved without commitment? Not a very big one. Once you’ve made a commitment you instantly gain two other advantages: priorities, and perseverance.
Prioritise Your Dreams
So you’ve got a great band of amazingly talented people, some killer tunes, and really positive feedback from your gigs. You’re on your way to the stars, baby, and one day you will rock the Stadium! So you plan to rehearse like crazy and book as many gigs as possible. Sweet!
Tuesdays and Thursdays are not good for the drummer, cause he’s working late. Sundays are not cool, cause you’ve promised your girlfriend to spend the day with her or she’ll get grumpy. And that gig you got offered next month is not going to work, because you’ve already made plans to travel out of town. Then the guitarist leaves the band and after a few months of not finding a replacement, the band starts to dissolve.
Sound familiar?
Life is the biggest obstacle between you and your dreams. There are a thousand things that get in the way. It’s not great to juggle work, upset your girlfriend or keep the band together. But if you have made a commitment to your band, you make it your top priority. Then you arrange the rest of your life around it. Prioritising is tough, and people outside the band don’t always understand it. But if you’re going to do it, then you’ll have to stick with it.
What Doesn’t Kill You…
If you’ve made a commitment to your music, you will make time and you will see through the tough times. Committed artists work hard, which in turn makes them better at their art. They will seize every opportunity to bring their work to an audience. And they won’t give up.
What has been the biggest obstacle for you so far?
This post first appeared on Independent Rockstar – a cool blog that you should check out.
Image by hiimniko
The biggest obstacle for me is always band members. I’ve been through a fair few musicians in my short time of being a musician, mostly due to apathy on their part. A lot of people seem to think it’s ok to show up at rehearsals completely unprepared or not do any work in between rehearsals.
Another issue is also conflicting timetables – trying to get people together to play a gig is a nightmare at times, and more often than not people aren’t that cooperative when it comes to setting a solid date for something. It’s a nightmare.
Although most recently my biggest obstacle has just been bad luck. I’ve had to cancel a fair few gigs over the last few months due to band members being ill, injured, having operations, bad weather. It’s almost like something is waiting for me to book a show so it can throw the most unlikely situation my way that prevents the gig from taking place! I’m beginning to feel victimised about that one.
It’s difficult to keep the work discipline when it comes to a band, because for most musicians, it really is about fun and passion. Sometimes it’s not so much fun or requires you to say no to other things. That’s when you need the discipline to prioritise the band rehearsals and gigs. If others don’t share the goals, discipline and work ethos with you, it’s just not going to work. As with any venture, the toughest challenge is to keep working and believing in tough times. Good luck! Don’t let the world or bad weather conspire against you!
Wow.. just found your neck of the social network woods and am glad that I did! Very great angles that you have provided for artists of all genres, level and facets. Thank you!
My biggest obstacles were in the past (a decade straight of being a metal bassits) and were along all of the lines that you have stated above honestly. Have have stayed on my crafts since 99, despite any and all opposition, expanded my knowledge base at every angle and kept my mind open throughout this whole journey, regardless of all the nay sayer and parasites, mean while honing in on instruments/social networking/all multi-media and multi-marketing angles/global markets and their ever changing stand points/doing what’s inside of my soul and by doing so creating a hot new multi-genre/multi-media project, that consist of only two dedicated members!!!/helping my local and global community out in any way, shape or form possible and have burnet not one bridge in doing so.
It’s a crazy shapeshifting and less risk taking world out there and those who aren’t putting their ears down to the tracks long before the trains are in sight as to gather the data bits of tomorrow, will for sure run in to some dead ends and tough times.
Once again… I love finding great nooks like yours and good luck with all of you endeavors.
-Joshua Emmitt-
http://www.facebook.com/somethingcomplex
Thanks for the comment, Joshua! You mentioned the magic word “multi” here several times, and I think that’s really important. As an independent artist it’s crucial to be involved in all aspects of your art, both artistic and commercial. Not to mention that it can also be fun, and reduce frustration a great deal!
This is incredibly important, what most people don’t see about an overnight success id the many years of crushing time and effort it took to get there.
Everybody starts off being crap but with daily effort anybody can create the “OMG, you Rock!” emotion. It’ just takes different amounts of time for different people.
The key thing is that once you set the wheels in motion and make a commitment you should not keep quitting. If you quit for a year you almost go back to the bottom of the hill.
You keep dropping great big bombs of wonderful information on here. Love this blog.
- chris
Great re-post. I struggled to actualize my dreams for 10 years and boy was I a BIG dreamer. Now that dreams are becoming a reality I feel committed, and then life gets in the way. For me, it’s all the other big- ticket items in life I’d like to accomplish: College, kids, family and career. Music is always on the sidelines waiting for attention.
Thanks for this post -Very re-energizing as a newbie attempting to prioritize!
Thanks Mackenzie!