One of the biggest challenges in the life of a working musician is balancing long term and short term goals. We all have things we need to do in order to meet our short term goals and needs. Things like buying food, paying rent, buying clothes, car expenses and so on would fall under the category of short term goals or needs. While goals like licensing music, getting music distribution, putting out a new CD and so on fall under the category of long term goals.
One of the biggest traps I see musicians, and people in all walks of like, fall into, is focusing too much on their short term objectives at the expense of their long term goals. According to my research (http://money.cnn.com/2013/06/24/pf/emergency-savings/) 76% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. Most of us seem to be making just enough money to meet our short term needs, with little left over for things like savings, investments, retirement and so forth.
I’m not here to tell you how to manage your money. But in this post I want to explore the idea of balancing both your short term and long term objectives, so that ultimately you can have the freedom to focus the majority of your time on things you truly care about.
Immediate Needs
We all have immediate needs that require our attention. We all have to pay rent, buy food and so on. My advice to musicians is to always get a handle on these needs first. If you’re stressed about how to pay your rent, it’s hard to get excited about things like licensing music or pursuing longer term goals related to your music career that may take a while to pay off. The good news, is that it really doesn’t take that much money to meet your basic needs. Depending on where you live and what sacrifices you’re willing to make, you can potentially drastically reduce your overhead in order to make meeting your short term demands much easier.
At times in my life, I have done a variety of things like living with roommates, down-scaling to a cheaper apartment, selling my car and more, in order to reduce the stress involved in meeting my basic needs. If you’re easily swept up in what I call “group think” you might be embarrassed to take such drastic steps. What will the neighbors think? Will people think you’re a loser because you’re not living in big house or fancy apartment? If these things really concern you that much, maybe you should go sell stocks or something. Being financially responsible is about doing what’s right for your situation, irrespective of what other people think. You’ll be amazed at how much more inspired you feel when you don’t have to worry and stress about meeting your basic needs.
Once you’ve figured out how to meet your basic needs and are able to set your life up in a way that is manageable, you’ll be able to start focusing on longer term goals that will ultimately allow you to go beyond living paycheck to paycheck like most Americans are doing. I find it shocking that so many Americans are a few paychecks away from being homeless. I’m sure some of this can be attributed to the economy or the government and elite bankers, or something else outside of our control, but I think there’s a much deeper problem that has more to do with human nature than external factors.
A couple months ago I interviewed the Canadian musician Rory Gardiner. The focus of our interview was how Rory was able to make savvy financial decisions that has allowed him to create multiple revenue streams and assets that have resulted in him not having to perform live as often in order to meet his basic needs. His story is a great story of how to meet your short term needs while also focusing on longer term objectives in order to break the cycle of living “paycheck to paycheck”. It’s a must listen interview for musicians, check it out if you haven’t already here: http://musicmoneyandlife.podbean.com/e/music-business-hacks-with-rory-gardiner/
I think one of the reasons people stay stuck living paycheck to paycheck is because people tend to have a hard time breaking out of the "short term need trap". Most people are so consumed with just making enough money to pay their bills that they neglect pursuing longer term goals that if realized, would allow them to break out of the cycle of living paycheck to paycheck. Most people are so fixated on the immediate needs in front of them that they have a hard time justifying spending their time pursuing goals that don’t immediately payoff. This is unfortunate, because as they saying goes, if you keep doing what you’ve been doing, you’ll keep getting what you’ve been getting.
Licensing music is more of a medium term goal. You probably won’t make a lot of money right away, but if you spend the time now getting started you can realistically expect to start earning passive income from your music within a year. To those that are short sighted, this might seem like a long time. But a year will come and go before you know it.
In my new program, The 90 Day Music Licensing Challenge, I suggest participants spend a half hour a day during the program submitting their music to leads and reviewing the training. It’s a small investment of time that I’ve seen pay off for dozens of people who have taken the program. Of course you can invest more time into the program if you're able to. Like in most endeavors, you'll get out of this program as much as you put into it.
If you’d like to move your music licensing career forward and expedite your success, be sure to register for The 90 Day Music Licensing Challenge. The program starts next Monday, May 18th and there are just a few days left to register.
More info:
http://www.90daymusiclicensingchallenge.com/
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