How to stop procrastinating to achieve your ambitions

Within the music industry, procrastination can be pretty common among producers. After all, you might not want to finish the 30 tracks sitting on your computer, or actually get the pre-release promotion of your new track sorted. But what’s important to understand is that these are the exact tasks that end up furthering your career and ultimately allowing you to achieve your ambitions. In this article, we’re going to discuss some reasons why people procrastinate, and how you can avoid this habit to achieve your dreams within the music industry a lot faster.

Of course, there are a multitude of reasons as to why people may procrastinate. For example, you may be too busy today, not have enough money in the bank to complete a task (like pay for promotion), or alternatively be uncertain on the results. Although these reasons can be valid in some cases, it’s often a situation in which a reason is simply an excuse for putting off a certain task. It’s an excuse for putting in the hustle and hard work that is required in order to achieve pretty much any ambition within the music industry.

As previously mentioned, fear and uncertainty is something that is increasingly common among music producers. The supposed “patience” is supposed to protect someone from a rejection from their favorite record label, their song not performing well on Spotify, or whatever else they’re worried about. This is why they procrastinate: they don’t want to handle the potential pain of fears that are commonly associated with goals. For some reason, people within the music industry love to believe that if we procrastinate long enough, the fears will magically fade away and the problems will disappear.

But as the majority of people now know, that is simply not true. Procrastination is simply an excuse for running away from fear and refusing to put in the hard work and sacrifice that’s necessary within the music industry. It puts a strain on your finances if you aren’t working, it puts a strain on relationships if you aren’t meeting people and therefore compromises your happiness within your career.

Now that we’ve covered the definition of procrastination, it’s time to go through some actionable steps that will stop you from doing it:

Write down your goals

Writing down your goals allows you to carefully consider what you want in life. Is it to achieve a million streams per track? Is it to play shows in multiple countries? Try to give yourself a deadline so that you have limited time to achieve your goals.

Break it down

At first, these goals will seem massively intimidating. However, if you break down the goal into actionable steps, it will seem a lot more achievable. For example, if your aim is to achieve a million streams per song, you could look at ways to get 100,000. And then build upwards from there.

Visualize your future

Shut your eyes and imagine yourself achieving your ambitions. Let this be your motivation towards putting in the effort and making the sacrifice needed towards fulfilling your goals.

Fear & excitement are the same thing

The only difference between fear and excitement is your gut instinct about something. Fear is saying “no, I shouldn’t be doing this”. In contrast, excitement is saying “yes, I can’t wait to do this!” The emotions and chemicals produced in the human body are exactly the same thing. The only difference is how we perceive an experience. Instead of being scared to run face-first at your ambitions due to the unknown, flip the switch and become excited at the potential opportunities.

Make yourself accountable

Nobody else is going to control whether you achieve your ambitions or not. You are in full control. You have the ability to achieve anything you desire. The only question you have to ask yourself is if you’re willing to put in the work.

Enjoy your progress

Don’t become “burned out” and lose the motivation to continue due to constantly working so hard. Instead, periodically reward yourself when you become closer to achieving your ambitions. Sticking with the previous scenario of wanting to achieve 1 million streams per release, maybe go out for dinner when you achieve 100k, or go on vacation. Do something you enjoy.

Start now

This is probably the most important one. If you keep saying “I’ll do this later”, then it’ll just make you procrastinate even further. Write down a list of goals, and start right now.

Procrastination is something that many people within the music industry struggle with. But, by taking some steps towards understanding your ambitions and putting in the work, you’ll be able to achieve your dreams a lot sooner.