Why you're feeling stuck in electronic music
Release resistance and move forward!
A lot of DJs, producers and electronic music professionals complain of feeling stuck. Among other things, they feel stuck in their creative process, their careers, their relationships, and old negative patterns.
There’s one thing making all of this worse: resistance
Resistance to feeling good. Resistance to support from peers or someone who is several steps ahead of you. Resistance to seeking help. Resistance to the acceptance of certain feelings, people or situations in electronic music.
If you're feeling stuck and don't know why then this blog will help!
When you’re feeling stuck in electronic music
Every once in a while you'll get a track out and people really like it. Each time, it sounds exponentially better than the last track. But most of the time you get on your DAW and stare at a blank project almost feeling overwhelmed. You want to make a good track but there's so much you have to do and so you get stuck.
It's totally normal to feel overwhelmed thinking about all that has to be done whenever you want to start a new track. Music producers who have more experience often feel the same way!
It’s important to understand what the wall is you're actually running into.
Do you just not want to spend the time on a track?
Is sound design intimidating to you?
Are you not feeling creative or inspired?
Once you identify the roadblock you're actually running into, you can figure out how to overcome it. You’re breaking up the challenge into smaller, more manageable pieces. With a series of steps to follow, you’ll get there much easier.
Running out of creative ideas for your tracks?
This is one of the most common things that happens to all DJs and electronic music producers.
Before you turn to weed or some other form of mind-altering substance, I suggest you turn to sober ways of coping with this. There’s nothing wrong with micro dosing every once in a while to get in a certain mood, but you have to understand that this is not your solution. If it is, seek help right now.
With that said, creativity is not something that comes and goes as you please. If you’re running out of ideas for your tracks, the first thing to do is to take a break, take a step back and give yourself some breathing room to notice what’s going on here.
Feeling stuck? The one thing that is making you feel worse: resistance
Whether you’re running out of creative ideas for your tracks, can’t finish a track, want to avoid feeling stuck while learning music production or generally feel stuck in your music career, there’s one thing that’ll make you feel worse: resistance!
Resistance to feeling good.
Resistance to support from peers or someone who is several steps ahead of you.
Resistance to seeking help.
Resistance to the acceptance of certain feelings, people, or situations in electronic music.
You would think it’s weird to resist support, help, feeling good or acceptance, but we’ve come to rely on fear so much as a way to protect ourselves from getting disappointed, hurt, rejected.
All it takes is a tiny mad idea to hijack your happiness
We are all born into love and pretty soon after fear is introduced. All it takes is one tiny mad idea to hijack your loving mindset. It doesn’t matter when this tiny mad idea arrives - whether it was in your childhood and you held onto it until now or if it is now, as you are reading this. All it takes is one tiny mad idea that you have come to believe to be true and you’ll go back into fear.
A limiting belief like, “I’m not good enough”, or “This won’t last”, or “It was just a coincidence or dumb luck” can separate you from a loving, positive attitude. you start to resist that positivity.
The metaphysical text A Course In Miracles - one of the fundamental pillars of my coaching teachings (insert my about page here), refers to this as ‘dissociation’, which according to the Course simply means “a decision to forget.”
You CHOOSE to forget that you are just as loveable, worthy, and valuable just like anybody else.
The emphasis is on choice here, because you cannot be equally devoted to 2 conflicting things, so you either choose love or you choose fear.
“Listen to what the ego says, and see what it directs you to see, and it is certain that you will see yourself as tiny, vulnerable and afraid. You will experience depression, a sense of worthlessness, and feelings of impermanence and unreality.”
Most of the time, you choose fear.
Why? Because your ego likes to stay in control. Ego here doesn’t refer to the ego of psychology, but a fearful way of thinking.
The ego keeps you in a world of comparison, better than and less than:
Your music is less than in comparison to the music of others,
You should have played at that festival because you are better than,
You can’t apply for that job because you’re less than, and so on.
Resistance shows up in the ways you try to control your music career and your life
Resistance shows up in different forms and are all ways you attempt to protect yourself. But is that truly how you want things to be?
Ask yourself this: What is the benefit? How are you benefiting from resisting feeling good, resisting to accept certain feelings, situations, or people?
The benefit isn’t always a positive thing, but it’s something that somehow keeps you comfortable and offers an excuse / giving yourself permission not to have to do the hard, uncomfortable things.
A few examples
Are you resisting finishing a track because you are afraid people will reject it? If you don’t finish it, you won’t have to face the possible rejection...
Are you resisting enjoying the fruits of your labor and sharing the joy with others because you don’t want to come across as arrogant?
Perhaps you resist cranking out another track because you fear success? People have always liked your tracks in the past and so you gotta deliver, right? If you self-sabotage, you won’t get the opportunity to come out with something new in the first place.
Whatever it is, you need to release resistance so that you can move forward and get to where you want to be in electronic music.
Release resistance and move forward in electronic music
One of the main reasons why most of us get stuck and don’t achieve our goals is because we don’t leave room for our objections, concerns and doubts.
We tell ourselves to stay positive, push through, and plow on no matter what. But doing that completely sends the wrong message. You’re telling yourself that you’re not allowed to have certain feelings and you force yourself to a state of being and at a pace that doesn’t feel natural to you. Before all else, before even setting goals, you need to be able to ACCEPT what is happening.
Through acceptance, it’s easier for you to feel where you should no longer be spending your time and energy.
Acceptance is also one of the best, most effective ways to make room for your intuition, inner voice (or however you prefer to call it) to come through.
“It is only when you fully and completely ACCEPT what is happening in a certain situation - and that also includes your worries, doubts, and objections, that you can also determine at which level you can change something. ”
And that’s when your actions will truly have an effect. That’s when you’ll take inspired action towards reaching your goals because it’ll be in alignment with how you truly feel.
You need to release resistance so that you can move forward and get to where you want to be in electronic music.
Let’s continue the conversation!
When you get stuck in electronic music, are you able to leave enough room for your objections, concerns and doubts, or do you push them away right away?