Whatever your goals are as a musician, whether you want to become the next U2 or Bruce Springsteen, or if you want to simply be able to wake up every day and make a living playing music, it's important that you have success. Success, even small success, breeds more success. When I first heard my music on national television it was thrilling beyond words. I was literally jumping up and down I was so excited. And I can remember thinking that it was only a matter of time before I became as famous as Coldplay or U2. I've always been just a little delusional at times! Although I've yet to become a household name, that single step forward gave me the confidence and inspiration to keep going and over the years I've accumulated a variety of accomplishments that I'm extremely proud of. The success that I had came at just the right time and without it, I sometimes wonder if I would have kept going forward.
It's frustrating and demoralizing when you're trying and trying to do something and you're not getting anywhere. I'm not going to use the word failure because I don't really believe in the concept of failure. But sometimes you fail to get the results you want and when this happens consistently it really, well, sucks! It's the opposite of inspiring. It drains your energy and leaves you feeling unmotivated. When this happens long enough it can lead many people to just give up altogether.
On the other hand when you do have success it's awesome! Trying something and then succeeding and getting the results you're after leads to feeling more motivated and more inspired and makes achieving more success even easier. We can see this principle all around us, like how people in relationships usually, paradoxically, find it easier to attract other partners. Or how the rich tend to get richer, and conversely how the poor often get poorer. Success tends to come to people more easily who are successful.
This principle is of course pretty logical in many ways. It's easier to open doors once you're in the building so to speak. But I think it goes deeper than that. I think there's also a psychological aspect to this principle. I think you can leverage success. Each victory you achieve and celebrate gives you a little more confidence to go after and achieve your next goal which gives you even more confidence and motivation to go after the next and so on.
One of the smartest things you can do to have more success in the music licensing business is to simply pursue more opportunities more often. If you really want to make a living as a musician you should be pursuing new opportunities and new leads EVERY day. As I pointed out in my recent video, How To License More Of Your Songs And Make More Money, there are essentially two areas you should be focusing on; your music and your marketing. If you have a great manager who is diligently marketing your music for you, then great, but if not then you need to take it upon yourself to take charge of this area. Most career opportunities are not going to fall into your lap, you're going to need to go after them! 