Dealing with Self Doubt in Music | FAQ Friday

As always we have some great questions in this week’s FAQ Friday. There are some technical ones, but the one we’re going to start with came from our academy. We’ve touched upon this questions a few times in other discussions.

So let’s jump right into today’s featured question! “How do you deal with massive self-doubt? How do you get yourself out of “the funk”? How do you get creative again? How do you get inspired?”

That is a paraphrase of the question that was asked but this is probably the most frequently asked question that I get.

Inside of our academy, people are very honest and it’s a wonderful community that we all share. This has been asked by quite a few academy members.

I just want to share with you that I have been through massive self-doubt and it never fully goes away. There are a couple of good reasons and one of those, of course, is that we’re standing on the shoulders of giants.

In the ’00s after building my career starting in the early-mid ’90s and we had bands like Bill Haley and The Comets, Elvis, Little Richard. We had Blues before that, and Jazz, Miles Davis and all the great rock bands of the ’60s and the soul, stacks…

You get it you understand my point, all of this incredible music from jazz, blues, rock, country, and classical and everything even further back.

So there is a certain amount of self-doubt that all of us have because we just put on a pair of headphones on to listen to some of this music and it just blows our minds.

When I hear a 90’s producer blowing their own horn I think “God bless you.” I’ve been in a room with Jack Douglas and Shelly Yakus and they’re super humble. They worked on the records that influenced the records that we made through the ’90s and ’00s.

You understand where I’m coming from, there is a big part of that but I think what it is called is humility. And it is ok to be humble and realize that we’re just standing on the shoulders of some of the most talented girls and guys that have ever lived.

We live in a world where some of the most incredible music has already been made. It doesn’t mean you can’t make incredible music, of course, you can! –Go out and make incredible music.

It is also fantastic to feel humbled by that amazing music that has come before. All the people that I admire, the people you hear me talk about every day on this channel that I’ve had the privilege to share a room with and talk to. All of them talk about these great artists and records.

Whether it is the Beatles, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, Steve Wonder… When you talk about this kind of great artist all of their stuff made us who we are, so it’s ok to feel humbled by it. Feeling like we’re just a little cog in the works is ok.

I also understand Anxiety and Depression, I’ve been through all of it, and I know so many creatives have too.

To me, the best people I have ever worked with have those “issues.” They go through massive anxiety, self-doubt, depression, It is very, very, I could say very 50 times, incredibly common!

If you are going through that you’re not alone, As the old phrase goes “this too shall pass.” For some people its taking break from the situation, go and do something else that helps.

I remember reading with Pete Townshend, years ago that when he has those feeling of massive melancholy that’s actually when he writes the most, he seizes it and he forces himself to work in that feeling.

I have read that’s the case for many different artists, but that isn’t necessarily everybody’s process. The reality is “This too Shall Pass.”

Just know that however you feel, whether it be for 5 minutes or 5 hours, you will come out the other side. I just work harder now, I used to hide under the bed covers and stay away from the world.

Unfortunately, that just didn’t work for me. I would have these massive fits of creativity, pick up the guitar practice for 12 hours solid then sleep in the next day and feel bad about myself, then do it again. – it was like binging.

Nowadays I have so many things that I do, I have to pace what I do all day. For my personality, I need to multitask and do lots of things. That is what keeps me out of my “funk,” out of my head and allows me to break out of it.

All I can say is you’re not alone, the best people in the world are the humblest in the world.