In this post, I’ll discuss how building empowering habits into your professional life will get you through challenging times. Understanding your Circle of Influence and spending less time on your Circle of Concern will strengthen your proactive mindset and self-confidence. We can all do with some confidence and clarity these days.
With festival cancellations, jazz clubs closings, and countrywide advisories to stay home in quarantine, jazz artists face perhaps the biggest challenge since the 40’s when the Germans decided they preferred Wagner over jazz music and put the whole genre ‘in quarantine’.
This blog post is for all you jazz artists that are feeling overwhelmed and unable to shift gears.
Time to build better habits
We don’t have to all start singing “Always look at the bright side of life“. Corona is having a real negative impact on the jazz sector and the cultural sector at large. I am not denying that. I simply want to try to figure out how to make the best of it.
Often when occupied between work and family obligations the balance in life gets lost. To be at your most creative, to feel confident enough to start something new and to truly give to others you need good habits. Habits that recharge you and re-centre you.
When I lose track of those empowering habits things go south fast. For example, in 2018-19 I lost myself in my work. By obsessively working 7 days a week slowly my creativity diminished, tunnel-vision reared its ugly head and sirens started singing their burn-out hymns. On top of that, time for things that truly mattered seems to be more and more sparse. Like time to play music, time for sports and time for my friends and family. It really is a downward spiral and the reason many seemingly successful people are actually feeling miserable. They, like me in those years, are successful in only one vital dimension of their life… However, it’s not too late to change your behaviour and start new habits.
Cultivate your inner fire
Instead, cultivate your inner fire. That flame of creation attracts people to you and your work. That fire that gets you up in the morning to make a cup of coffee, grab your guitar, compose and plan your next album.
How do you keep the fire burning? Well, how do you keep your heart pumping? Is your mind sharp? Are your emotions stable? By investing time in each of these dimensions on a weekly basis.
So these weeks or months of COVID-quarantine, spend time on your emotional self, your physical self, your mental self and your spiritual self. Read a good book, go cycling, phone your mother, study something new that you always wanted to learn, thank somebody that made a difference in your life, sleep eight hours, read Siddhartha by Herman Hesse or any other spiritual book that has your fancy, try eating vegan for three days, breath deeper or start writing a song each day.
Giving your four selves sufficient attention is, in the end, the most productive thing you can do. It will bring more clarity and guide your actions towards a better place. A place out of this Corona mess.
Right now, to bring this into practice myself, I make daily long cycle tours with my girlfriend, cook something new, started writing blog posts, expand my mind by reading The Gift – a classic for every artist to read by Lewis Hyde – and I am learning a new skill: website design.
So, what will you do to keep your fire burning?
You Can’t Stop Corona, But You Can Start new habits
Have you read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey? It packs some deep insights and practical tools on how to deal with uncertain times like these. In my modest view, it is the best business book ever written. My tip of the day 🙂
Many people get anxious about things that they cannot affect. Fear can cripple us and cloud our decision-making. It’s been always like that.
The Stoics – some 2.000 years ago – formulated a core principle for achieving “tranquillity”. According to philosopher Epictetus, we should always be asking ourselves: “Is this something that is, or is not, in my control?”
Another great quote by him is: “It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.“
Read more on Covey’s 7 Habits here.
Expand your circle of influence
Author Stephen Covey was inspired by the Stoics and wrote about the things that affect you, and the things you can affect. He visualised this into two circles:
- The Circle of Concern
includes everything that affects you and is outside of your control. From corona to the government, shifting global music trends, the environment, if people will like your music or the economy. These are things that happen to us. - The Circle of Influence
includes all things you can affect through your actions. Like what you buy, what you read, what instrument you play, which gig you say yes to, which friends you spend time with, what food you eat, etcetera. These are things you internalise, such as your worldview, attitude, spirituality, habits and goals. Ideally, these actions are based upon your most important principles.
Of course, there will always be more things out of our control. We’re not masters of the universe. But how do you deal with these externalities?
Are you reactive or proactive?
When I feel overwhelmed with life there is a good chance I am focusing on issues I cannot control, issues within my Circle of Concern. Taking a step back to evaluate this can change these feelings and provide a course of action to expand my Circle of Influence.
Covey separates in this ‘circle’ context being reactive from – the desired – being proactive.
Reactive people focus on issues in their Circle of Concern. Which right now would be the Coronavirus. Reactive people are often influenced by their physical and environmental surroundings. If it rains, they feel bad and if people treat them well, they feel good. This attitude increases feelings of helplessness, stress and causes anxiety.
Proactive people take responsibility for their own lives. They focus on issues they can influence. These are their own actions and thoughts. By acting upon your Circle of Influence you actually expand this circle. You make it bigger and leave less space for your Circle of Concern. Doing this will make you more confident, more creative and will make you feel more in control.
That means you have to do two things:
- Realise what issues are actually in your Circle of Control.
- Examine what issues – concern vs influence – you spend most of your time on and adjust accordingly.
By spending more of your time on your Circle of Influence you focus your attention and efforts where you can make the biggest difference.
What can you do today to act upon your Circle of Influence?
Acting upon your Circle of Influence means taking (as much as possible) responsibility and control for your own life. Try doing any of the following things:
- Set goals and turn them into actionable and achievable steps.
- Act upon above-set goals. Create music, compose, rewrite your artist biography, create an art manifesto, make a three-year career plan …
- Turn the above actions into productive habits
- Ration your news and social media intake. It makes your Circle of Concern bigger, which is the opposite of what you need. There is a difference between being informed and being obsessive.
- Take a step back and look at your big picture. Are you still aligned with your purpose/personal mission? If not, what could you do these weeks so that your inner compass points True North?
- Start each day by asking yourself ‘What is in my control?’ What change can I make today to expand my Circle of Influence?
- When you do get anxious, analyse your fear. Is it based on your Circle of Concern or on your Circle of Influence? If it’s the first, is there something you could do that would make you feel better about it?
Pieter Schoonderwoerd
Your Jazz Career
Find an empowering ebook on developing your artistic vision and writing a compelling artist biography here.
I’ve been coaching jazz artists for three years to achieve their creative and professional ambitions. If you are interested in a personal coaching session, you can read more about it here.