Habits. Consistency. Work ethic.
These are the elements you need if you want to grow your music career.
When a behavior becomes a habit, it starts to feel natural. You don’t even think about it.
Imagine if songwriting or producing music became a habit for you.
You could make a lot more music. You’d quickly improve. And your music career could make leaps forward.
But how to form habits is the tricky part.
So let’s talk about how to form habits and three easy methods for making new ones…
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How Long Does It Take To Form a Habit?
You may have heard it takes 21 days to form a habit. That’s what I’ve heard. Your know-it-all friend may have told you.
Turns out, that’s wrong.
A plastic surgeon first started that idea. He observed, in his world, that it took a minimum of 21 days to form a new habit.
He published a book with this statement. Then people started spreading it as fact.
But, according to a study from University College London, it can take much longer than 21 days to form a new habit.
They found that, on average, it takes at least two months before a person’s behavior becomes a habit.
In the study, the fastest habit formed in 18 days while the longest took 254 days.
But on average, it took 66 days to form a habit.
So yeah, you could form a new habit in 21 days. But it could also take you several months.
So don’t be discouraged if you’re having trouble.
Below are three simple things you can implement today to help you successfully form a habit…
Start Small
If you’ve been around this blog for a while, you might be sick of me saying this…
But you have to start small. Take baby steps.
Create goals so easy to reach that, before you know it, goal-setting has become habit-forming.
For example…
Instead of saying, “I’m going to write and record an album this year,” say something like, “I’m going to write one song this week.”
Once you write that song, do the exact same thing the following week. And then the next.
And pretty soon, you’ll have formed a habit of writing a song a week. Soon, you’ll have enough songs for an album.
Make your goals smaller than you think they should be.
That’s the way to turn your hopes and dreams into habits and accomplishments.
I sign every email I send to the subscribers of this blog with “Just do one thing today.”
And I 100% believe in that idealogy.
You have to be good consistently in order to eventually be great.
Give Yourself Deadlines
Musician With A Day Job launched in May of 2018.
And I didn’t create a schedule for my blog posts until THIS YEAR.
Up until 2020, my posts were sporadic and disorganized.
But with a schedule (i.e. a content calendar), I laid out what posts I’d write and when I would schedule them to go live.
Giving myself these deadlines helped me post new, high-quality content nearly every week this year.
The MWADJ email list has grown. Site traffic continues to go up.
All thanks to this schedule. All thanks to giving myself deadlines.
And I give myself deadlines as a musician too.
I completed all four of my music-related goals this year.
That might not sound like a lot, but one of those goals was a big one (it could’ve been smaller)…
“Release one song every 4-6 weeks in 2020.” This was my ongoing project PHENOMENA.
And how do I know small goals helped music-making become a habit for me?
PHENOMENA has been almost entirely funded by the income I make from music, mainly from sync licensing.
I got a couple of blog features. Spotify playlisters shared my songs. People spread my music on social media.
And all of my goals had deadlines and timeframes.
I use The One-Thing-A-Day Worksheet to stay organized and on track. Grab it for FREE below.
Automate Stuff
Because you have limited time to make music, automation can help you get a lot more done than you think.
For me, I use automation when sending emails to my subscribers.
Whenever I release a new song, I write an email blast beforehand at a time that works for me.
Then I schedule the email to go out when the song is live. (I use MailerLite for this).
A lot of people automate their social media posts, allowing them to consistently engage with their audience.
You can even automate your income. I do this through:
Automation is all about doing stuff when it’s convenient for you yet sharing and benefiting from it at a different time or on an ongoing basis.
Automate stuff. It will make habit-forming much easier.
Conclusion: Focus on the Work
Here’s the main takeaway…
Don’t stress out about forming new habits or how long it takes for them to stick.
Don’t get caught up in the number of days that have passed or how much you think you’re failing.
Just do the work. Focus on making the best possible music today.
If you miss a day, go easy on yourself. Maybe life got in the way. It happens.
Get back at it tomorrow.
As you implement the above habit-building ideas, remember that focusing on today is truly how to form habits.
Start forming habits today
Learn how to form habits with this FREE worksheet