Managing Expectations As An Independent Artist

Good morning! I hope you’re having a great start of the day. Today I want to talk about something that I think many artists and creative people and entrepreneurs struggle with. And that’s expectations. I’ve struggled a bunch with dealing with disappointment because my expectations weren’t met. I might have had expectations of how well my work was going to perform and then it didn’t perform well. Expectations of collaborators who made promises but didn’t keep them. Over time I realised how important managing expectations is so I don’t let disappointment get me down. Because if I do let disappointment get the best of me I’m letting an external source, that I have no control over, determine if I’m going to succeed or not. And that means that I’m taking no ownership over my future.

So here’s a short story of something that happened to me. A couple years ago, I got selected by one of the biggest streaming services, through my publisher, to be put in the spotlight. They said they loved my music and were going to help me promote it, because they wanted to help out independent artists just like me. Because they wanted to let people know that they, as a huge platform, still support independent artists. They said I was the perfect candidate for their project for independent artists. I thought it was all very promising and I got some stars in my eyes. So the first song that I thought they were going to help me promote was almost finished. It was a collab with two other producers and a singer. A very cool song. And because their promotion project seemed kind of urgent, they even said that they didn’t see the song in the back end of the service yet. Which I interpreted as that they must have big plans for it. So I put some pressure on my friends to finish that song as quick as possible. It wasn’t finished perfectly, but definitely good enough to enjoy. So we released that song. And then.. Nothing. Nothing happened. No promotional support from the streaming service. They made one post on one instagram page, once. So I had this story in my head of how this thing was going to give my friends and me so much exposure and opportunities. But then, it wasn’t that at all.

What happened to me after this. Is that I got angry and disappointed. Which resulted in me wasting time not making new music, not releasing new music, not doing the things that would help me get further. And what I realised is that I was making up stories about how this external thing was going to make me super successful and make me super happy and solve all my problems. And that putting my success and happiness in other peoples hands, would most likely result in disappointment and discouragement. And then I decided to make the switch to stop doing that, stop making up these stories of how people were going to give me success. And in stead of becoming bitter at people for not doing that, just drop all expectations. This is easier said than done but what helped me do this a lot is to prioritise staying busy with my own projects. The things that I could do on my own. This would give me the feeling that I’m constantly moving towards my goals no matter what other people do. And I could be more accepting of the fact that something might not happen the way that I envisioned it. It wouldn’t matter because I was still making moves towards my goals. I was still doing what I could.

Another way that having expectations used to negatively impact my mood and work. Is that I used to assume, when collaborating with people, that they were going to put in the same effort as me. That they were going to show up for the project with the same urgency as I was willing to do. And this is unfair to expect from people, because people have lives, they have their own stuff going on. I can’t tell people how to live and where they should have their priorities. Realising this was so freeing. Because in stead of trying change people to show the behaviour that I was looking for in collaborators. I could just look for people who were already doing that, who were already showing the character traits that make them awesome to work with. I used to get very frustrated when someone made a promise and then didn’t keep it, for example, if someone canceled a session because maybe they we hungover or whatever. Or tired. But nowadays, a lot of the times, I’m kind of happy when someone cancels on me. Because I always have something to do for myself and I just got extra time to do more of that and if someone cancels on me because they went out drinking or something, they showing me how important the collaboration is to them. Which is great information to have because then I know how serious I should take the collaboration. And who I should spend more time with, and who I should spend less time with. And this way I don’t ever have to have unfair expectations.

And yet another way having expectations can hold people back. Is having expectations of how well your work is going to perform. If you have super high expectations of your song getting tons of streams for example. There’s a big chance you’re going to be disappointed. This can be very distracting from the thing that you should actually be focused on. Creating. When you just focus on the work and on improving. Which is really all you can do. You increase your chance of success so much more, and you stay in the creative flow. Which is what you love as an artist, the real reason you’re doing what you’re doing. Having high expectations can make you forget that. And make you hate thing that you used to love.

All right these were some of my thoughts about expectations and my experiences with it. Please let me know if I talk about myself too much. I’m new to podcasting and I would love to get better at so I’m open to all the feedback I can get. Thank you so much for your attention today. I hope these thoughts can be useful to someone in some way and wish you an amazing day, much love!