I am often amazed at how habits dominate our mental, physical and psychological way of moving forward in all that we do. It’s often not done on purpose, but rather we feel stuck and don’t understand how to start the process of change when we realize there might be a different and even better way to get where we want to go. For example, what does one need to move forward with having a singing career?
All of our educational years have been spent for the most part, having others give us assignments of different kinds, specific music to learn, tell us how to dress for auditions and performances, how to behave when representing the school, etc. It’s a sort of freedom from living at home, but still has many specific rules and regulations we must follow. Once we graduate into the real world, it is without having had a period of internship of what this new game is, what the rules are and especially important how the game is really played so we know whether we want to join in or not. Now you are on your own. You must learn to be responsible for what happens and how you choose to deal with it all. You must fulfill your own destiny.
Learning to not just follow someone else blindly into your future has to begin as soon after your formal education is over. This can often be a shock because you have never had the kind of responsibility that now is necessary to carry on. It really can be a rude awakening and a huge leap faith that you can be capable of being in charge of your future. It’s easy to get caught up once again in allowing someone else to have the responsibility of telling you what to do and how to do it when attending Summer and Apprentice Programs or perhaps you may find a teacher who will make all the necessary career choices yet again for you.
If you really want to succeed in building a singing career, you will need to be totally responsible for where, when, how, and what is in your life. This doesn’t mean you can’t seek advice, ask lots of questions along the way, or find a mentor that you trust and respect. You can create a sounding board of a plethora of folks to help you move forward toward your goals. But you must be ready to experience risk, commitment, sacrifice, and take responsibility for how your life and career unfold. You can’t be held back by fear which is often not real anyway. Fear usually stems from old habits and beliefs. You can’t be afraid of making mistakes, or embracing failure because that is all part of life’s rich pageant and will happen. What’s important about all of this is that you wake up, become conscious that it’s your life going by and realize you are in charge and can now start making your own choices about what’s important to you and be responsible about getting things done on your own time table. Make a plan and work it. It will never be perfect and will need lots of experimentation on your part. Ask for help when you need it. Don’t just accept what someone else says you should be doing or how it should be done. Know if it will work for you by doing it. If it works great, if not either adjust it so it does work or let it go and move on always looking for what will move you to the next step. Take the challenge to grow and change into the person you were meant to be, the artist you were meant to be. No one can do it for you, no matter what. Now you know what I think about responsibility, let me know what you have to say about it. Avanti until next time. Carol
