1 essential thing every DJ needs to have for a sustainable, successful career
Do you know how much time you spend worrying about your DJ career? Let’s say for example, it’s 1 hour and 50 per day. That amounts to 12 hours and 53 minutes per week and shaves off 4 years and 11 months across an average adult lifetime of 64 years. How insane is that! How can you save those 4 years and 11 months of your life?
Even though this may not be an exact science, you get the point. If you spend time on the daily worrying about your career in music, then clearly, you need to stop fretting and get a grip. Whether you’ve got a team doing things for you or you don’t have representation yet, you gotta get out of your own way (read: out of your head) and map out a strategy for your career. You have to know what you’ll do, when you’ll do it and why.
You gotta have a plan.
This is really essential for any DJ who is truly committed and serious about building a sustainable career in electronic music.
Do you have a plan for 2020 yet?
Set goals for your DJ career in 2020 and crush them with a personal strategy to get you started. It only takes 60 minutes. “Alicorn” coaching spots opening up soon. Get on the wait list to stay informed.
Get yourself out of the worry flurry and into a mindful flow
Many DJ/producers worry about not having enough time for their music and where their music is going in the first place.
Without setting goals and having a plan on how and when to follow through, how will you know that you’re moving forward? How will you know where to go, what to do to get there? How will you avoid overwhelm and stress if you don’t know what’s coming next?
How will you stop fretting over things and save that 4 years and 11 months of your dear life?
I’m pretty sure that those worry flurries you put yourself in every single day are not worth losing sleep and energy over.
Here’s a typical example of a worry flurry - a recurring loop of 4-8 thoughts that gets you nowhere fast.
Having a plan is essential for longevity in your career. It sets you up for success and will help you anticipate potential hurdles so that you are prepared if and when said hurdles present themselves.
Here are 3 major ways in which a strategy can help you to pursue and advance a DJ career.
Break the worry flurry fast by reframing your thoughts.
Instead of spending 4 years and 11 months of your life worrying (for example), invest that time into your DJ career. Having a plan for your DJ career allows you to break your cycles of worrying fast.
The first thing you want to do is write down your worry flurries as soon as you detect them, so that you can recognise them when they happen.
Next, look at what you DO have/can do/are. This is a practice you can easily build into your routine. Review your activities weekly and celebrate them instead of staying stuck in a loop of worry flurries. In order for this to work, it’s good to do this on a weekly basis and not just monthly or yearly, because our brain starts to have difficulties recalling things that happened more than 7 days ago.
Ask yourself: Am I still on track? What is working and what isn’t? Am I making the progress I hoped for?
If the answer is yes, then celebrate and recommit! If the answer is no, then simply go over the strategy you’ve outlined and determine which part of your plan you’re worrying about. Perhaps you need to course-correct something. If that’s the case, finetune and be on your way.Choose to see things differently.
You have that power and you probably don’t even know it. You see, each time you evaluate a situation, you’re making conscious choices. You choose the way you want to interpret things. That means, you can always choose again.
No need to look elsewhere or point fingers. This includes, self-victimisation. A self-victimising attitude can potentially block you creatively in your music-making, blind you from seeing opportunities and hold you back from understanding what you need to build a sustainable career and create longevity.
If you find yourself feeling shitty about external circumstances at the expense of your wellbeing, you’ll want to reflect on how much you put the blame elsewhere - outside of your control and learn how to cope. Set your intention and be determinded to choose to see things differently.
The cool thing is, when you have a solid strategy for your DJ career, you can identify things you can control and things you can’t. And then act accordingly.Crush goals without crashing your wellbeing
You need a plan in order to crush your goals and you need to be prepared by planning ahead. Besides, having it on paper is out of your head and that means more peace of mind.
Giving your mind that well-deserved break allows S P A C E for your thoughts to be able to flow naturally, which helps to create something that you’ll be happy about.
Put differently, how can you be happy about something you need to force out of you?
Important: you need to attach deadlines to your goals. If it’s not planned it’s not real. And if it’s not real, it ain’t gonna happen. Having a simple strategy for your DJ career can get you a long way.
“Alicorn” one-off strategy sessions for DJs & Producers looking to advance their career available again soon. Stay informed by getting on the wait list.
Spend your time wisely. It is one of your most precious resources. You can’t buy back lost time.
Understand that when you don’t have a plan, you are likely to set yourself up to be helpless, when you’re really not. Basically, you’ll just use not knowing what to do as an excuse not to have to grab the bull by the horns. If you’re truly intent on crushing your goals and advancing your DJ activities, you’ll want to turn that tude around no matter what.
How you handle yourself when it comes to control speaks volumes about your sense of wellbeing. When you take care of yourself and the things you value most, you are feeling well. When you are feeling well, you’ll take inspired action - this means, achieving results.
Knowing exactly what to do, when to do it and how is going to grow your level of confidence and self-esteem immensely.
The cool thing is, it’s really not a hard thing to do. You can achieve a simple strategy in just 60 minutes. And that’s not all, you’ll automatically start to dig deeper into why you’re in this industry in the first place. It’s important to know why you do what you do, otherwise, what’s the point? Your life, your time, your energy and your attention are too valuable. Use them in a focused way by making conscious choices for yourself and your DJ career.
Case study from my coaching practice
A client of mine was curious about holistic empowerment coaching for DJs & producers, but didn’t want to commit to anything long-term, so he decided to book an Alicorn strategy session with me. He had a particular and very personal music project he really wanted to see happen but he couldn’t figure out his next steps. He kept going around in circles all the while the answers to his question lied within himself.
So, during 60 minutes we looked at:
Why this project was so important to him and which values it supported in his life overall,
The logistics of executing the project: what materials he needed, who he needed to reach out to and when he had to have this done,
What limiting beliefs were holding him back from taking the first step,
How he could hold himself accountable,
The details of each step he needed to take, the deadlines as to when he needed to have them finished and how he was going to measure his success.
We basically outlined a strategy to get him started and that’s what he did, he got started.
It’s kind of like a first-aid kit. You immediately find the pain points and apply immediate treatment.
This is just one of many examples how an Alicorn can serve DJs and producers looking to advance their DJ career. I Hope this has given you food for thought and will help you decide what your next steps should be!