“Building Confidence”
Confidence is defined by having a firm belief and trust in someone or something.
So how do we build belief and trust in ourselves?
Brian here again with the second edition of Talking Chops and this time we are going to be talking how to build Confidence. The answer is quite simple really, and that is to keep the promises we make ourselves. The hard part is putting those promises into action and staying consistent in those actions for a sustainable period of time. An easy action you can take, is to promise yourself that you are going to make your bed every morning. It only takes a few minutes and for me I enjoy my sleep and I like pulling back the covers and climbing into a nice warm cozy bed. Good luck on cold nights fighting those sheets and covers to wrap yourself up in. You will probably spend more time trying to get comfortable not making the bed, then just doing it first thing in the morning. If you listen to highly successful people in Business, Sports and Entertainment, they will tell you they have a routine that they do every morning. It does not change not matter where and what the circumstances are. There are many books and podcasts that show you why these practices work and how to apply them. In a nutshell, whatever set of rituals you perform like making your bed first thing in morning, meditation or working out is setting the tone for the rest of the day. You are programming your sub conscience to control your actions and thus making it easier for you to attract the things you really want to actually happen. Things aren’t always going to go your way, it’s part of life. But, we can reduce the chaos of everyday ups and downs because you created a habit for yourself in the morning and the actions that occur during the day are a direct cause of how you act and how you feel. This is not something that will occur with one or two days practice. Some of you may have heard of the 21 day fix, even that is meant to alter your regular habits for day to day life. It's not do this for a month and your life will change. What it means is it’s going to take a month of hard work to break your old habits and to get yourself into a mindset that you can now put on auto pilot so that 6 months to a year or longer, you will be seeing these good habits take affect in almost all other aspects of your life.
Let’s put this to action in terms of playing our instrument. Think of a song or a solo that you really want to learn. Tell yourself everyday that you can play it. Not will play it, because you are telling yourself, in the future I’ll learn this or tomorrow I’ll learn this, because tomorrow never comes. Program your brain by saying I can play it. Even if you can’t physically play the notes yet, you are telling yourself you can because if you take enough action and practice a little bit everyday, sooner or later, you will have learned that song or solo. Can do attitude is the key here. Tell yourself you can do it, believe you can do it and take action, MASSIVE ACTION!
Now let’s say you want to learn a Rush tune but you are just starting to play. Realistically you can’t play it. Sorry I’m just being brutally honest. You will try and you will fail and the result of that is you’ll get frustrated and quit. However, what you can do is set short term goals for yourself to build up your skills and in a matter of days, weeks or months revisit that challenge and set new goals for yourself to start tackling bits and pieces of it. Do this and in no time you will have built up all the skills you need to play that song. With practice you will get better, learn faster and be able to play more challenging songs in a shorter period of time. If you are an experienced/seasoned player, think back of your beginner days and how you felt challenged and maybe you had a teacher to push you and help you understand the material better. Perhaps you are self taught like me but think of how it feels now to know how far you’ve come as a player and as a person. Now think about where you want to be a year from now. Use those morning habits to show gratefulness for what you currently have, and tell the universe what you HAVE in the future. There is a very famous quote by Abraham Lincoln that states, “The best way to predict your future is to create it.”
I can look back to a time when I took snare drum lessons through school and wanted to play the whole kit but my teacher wanted me to read music and play rudiments instead. So I stopped taking lessons and took what little information I had a started applying it to the drum set. Fast forward to 2001, I was 15 years old and big into rock and metal. This is the year that “Lateralus” by Tool had come out and I’ll be honest it blew my mind. To that point I had never heard anything like that before and didn’t know how to decipher what I was listening to. So I shelved that album and continued to listen and playing along to other bands from that era. Couple years later my skills had progressed and my passion for the instrument had grown significantly so I revisited this Iconic record and told myself I was going to learn “Porabola”. I must have listened to that song over 100,000 times to nail every groove, every fill and transition. But I did it! Then do you know what I did next? I learned every song of that album front to back. I played to it almost everyday. I’m surprised the CD still works 20 years later. After I accomplished this, I felt like there wasn’t a song on the planet that I couldn’t learn to play. And sure I sometimes make mistakes like any body else on relatively simple tunes but at that point, Lateralus was the most complex collection of music I had ever heard before so to be able to play along to it, my confidence to tackle anything else was high.
Don’t confuse confidence with ego!
Remember confidence means “with faith”.
Ego is when you think you are better and bigger than everyone else. It’s ok to let Ego push your confidence higher but don’t let Ego drive you. Part of being a successful Musician is networking and no one wants to work with a person who thinks “I’m the best, everybody else stinks” type of attitude. Music is a collaboration for the most part, everyone has their own style, the own sound. Respect that, listen and learn from each other. Be humble.
If you find yourself in a talent showcase or gig where multiple acts are playing with each other, play to your strengths. Don’t change who you are and play a certain way to please the audience and judges. Be yourself, play with conviction in areas you sound best. Leave it all out on the line because at the end of the day, even if things don’t go your way, you know you brought your best and you did it your way. That also builds confidence. Don’t perform in a way someone would and fail, you’ll doubt yourself and wonder “what if”. People recognize confidence, they can see it the way you carry yourself. Not in the fashion sense, you don’t need a $100 name brand shirt to show people you feel good about yourself. When you’re comfortable in your own skin, it shows in the way you walk and talk. Chin up, standing tall, shoulders back and relaxed. Being confident is knowing who you are and where you’re going. You’re not going to please everyone, not everyone you meet is going to like you or be your friend. Doesn’t matter, all that means is their energy is not in line with yours so don’t waste your time trying to win their approval. We talked about it before, attracting the things you want into your life, that also includes the people and relationships you have. Find like minded people. It is said that if you hang out with 5 rich people you’ll be the 6th. You become and act like the people you are most surrounded by, so make sure your inner circle is heading in a direction that allows you to grow you as a person.
Let’s get back to goals to close it out, because like I said, confidence comes from keeping promises you make to yourself. Set long term and short term goals for where you want to be. Make your long term goals so big and outrageous that people think you’re crazy. Your short term goals are ones that are easier to reach. These are the building blocks to obtaining your bigger goal in the future. The more clear your vision is of what you want, the easier it will come to fruition. For example, if one of your goals, like me, is to loose weight, don’t say my goal is to loose weight. Your goal needs to be specific like “I’m going to loose 20 pounds”. Ok now you can take easier steps towards that by committing to working out 3 times a week and only eat 2 slices of pizza on Friday or Saturday night (Which I am guilty of not doing). These are what’s called “Non-Negotiables”. It’s what you need to develop that routine so you can cruise easily to that thing you’re trying to accomplish. A perfect example for musicians of “Non-Negotiables” is, if your goal is to get faster at playing scales on guitar or faster paradiddles, you need to block say an hour of practice a day until you’ve reached that goal. If you make that your “Non-Negotiable” and your friends call you to go out and do something, tell them you’ll meet them in a bit, you have to practice, that’s not a choice. Hold yourself accountable! My wife asked me why I tell everyone when I go to the gym and I told her, I tell them for myself. I say it to hold myself accountable if I don’t go or skip a day, I feel like I let myself down. What happens when we feel down on ourselves? Our confidence is low and it can dramatically affect the other aspects in our life and show up in negative ways.
Sure as time goes on, our thoughts and our feelings change. Your goals should change as well. Every time you make a goal and reach it, set a new one. Reach new heights for yourself and keep improving in every aspect that makes you happy. Life is funny, sometimes you get you want, sometimes you get what you need, and sometimes life throws you a curveball and it hits you like, Why did this happen? Or why me? And it might take some time before you find the answer to life lessons but whatever you decide to do, do it the best way you know how, your way! Stick to your decisions, making the right one can be hard to see. If you find yourself not happy with it, you can change again, your decision can’t make your devision. I’ll say it again. Your decision cannot make your devision! Don’t tear yourself up over it, own it! Learn from it and move on the next, because your destiny lies elsewhere.
I challenge all of you to write down 6 goals you wish to accomplish in 6 months. Write it on a piece of paper with the date on top and hang it in a spot where you will see it everyday as a reminder. They can be as big or as small as you want but make it realistic and make them reachable. As you complete these goals check it off your list and in 6 months make a new one. Keep pushing yourself and challenge yourself.
Make a promise to yourself, keep that promise so when you take a brief moment to look back and say, “Yeah, I did it” I guarantee you will feel a heck of a lot better about yourself. If you can do it once you can do it a million times. Trust yourself, have faith in yourself, a most of all believe in your ability to accomplish anything.
If you have any questions, just want to talk, or need help coming up with your own routine with your goals in mind, message me @ChopsUp on Instagram or email me at BrianM@chopsup.com.
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Love It, Dream It, Live It.
