How Musicians Can Overcome Adversity [Musician Coaching]

Adversity

Recently, I have been receiving many consultations regarding career slumps. I am not sure if it is due to the timing, the season, or just a coincidence. It is precisely during such times of adversity that you need to coach yourself. By applying the methods of Musician Coaching that I have used to develop many musicians to yourself, you as an adult musician can overcome adversity.

Resilience

What is needed is psychological resilience. Resilience is the power to bounce back like a spring when acted upon in a negative direction. The following diagram is a common example.

Trampoline

With average resilience, a musician will simply repeat ups and downs. You need to prepare a trampoline with leverage underneath. The following is an image of that.

In other words, the further down you go from a flat state, the greater your rate of improvement will be afterward. Furthermore, even if you fall slowly in terms of time, you will begin to rise steeply.

In some country, there is a story of a musician who, after being falsely accused and exposed to the public for half a year, won a major victory in a civil lawsuit and received a large sum of money in damages.

How to Train

However, you probably do not know how to train that resilience. Before knowing how to train it, you need to know "why you lack resilience". It is because you take unpleasant events as "a personal jab at only you". You take things that have nothing to do with you and assume "it must be about me," react to that by saying "I am not at fault," play the victim by saying "why only me," shift responsibility by saying "it's because of this or that"... and in the end, as I mentioned at the beginning, you make up excuses by convincing yourself that the principles lie in things unrelated to you, such as "because it is like this now." If you do this, your musician life will stay down once you go down.

To train it, "Thank you" is a good place to start. This is a method I was taught when I was 20 years old.

• If you get fired, say "Thank you! For giving me the opportunity to start a business!"

• If you get divorced, say "Thank you! For giving me a chance at a new romance!"

• If you suffer a huge loss, say "Thank you! For teaching me the importance of saving!"

• If you get seriously injured, say "Thank you! For giving me a chance to rest!"

The Strongest Monster

You may know that in games and movies, there are monsters whose attacked parts become even stronger. If you think of yourself as that strongest monster, you will actually start to look forward to being attacked.

Summary

I hope this serves as a hint for adult guitarists facing adversity.

Koji Tsumoto (HP is here)

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