The benefit and the downfall of not having a traditional 9-5 is the fact that you can work at any time, and generally in any place.
This is great at 3pm when you have to scoot off to run a few errands, but can become troublesome when you really know you should be spending your Sunday afternoon being productive, instead of laying around in the park.
Even despite the evidence to the contrary, this myth about being “one in a million” seems to persist through many areas of life. A great High School football player may see his name in lights in a huge college, then NFL, stadium. A teenager teaching himself guitar may fancy himself as the next Jimi Hendrix.
Dare to dream people, but don’t forget to hustle along the way.
Hustling means practicing not only to be good, but to be phenomenal. As a hint, Malcom Gladwell seems to have done research suggesting that this greatness starts hitting its stride around 10,000 practice hours. And that’s perfect practice, not just half-baked “I think I’ll play a few notes and call it practice”, practice. There’s a difference, and every musician knows that this difference exists.
Wake up early and set a schedule. Learn when you’re most efficient, when you’re the most creative, and when you’re just “there” and pretty much useless. Build around that, and stick to it. Work your butt off like your career and livelihood depends on it, as you know what? It does.
The lack of defined working hours is either a good thing or a bad thing. It really is up to each individual to figure out what works for them, then react accordingly. Do you have your best brainstorms at 2am, consistently? Great. Harness that and make sure you plan to be up and brainstorming at 2am.
Do you work a full-time job? Plan around that, and be prepared to sacrifice. It wouldn’t be called the life of a struggling musician if the musician wasn’t, well, struggling.
Hustling often means staying up extra hours, giving up free time and using vacation days to work on your craft.
A hustler’s life ain’t easy…
I often notice a difference in people I come across. It’s become a bit easier to define lately as those who get “the hustle”, and those that don’t.
Those that do often have multiple projects going on at once. Those that do always have their hands in something and their minds working on a problem they’re not quite sure how they’re going to solve, but they know they’ll get there. Those that do are often the ones drinking a few cups of coffee to get them through until midnight, and those people you see that always seem to have something to do, people to see, or places to go. The hustle really is the manifestation of their belief in many ways – the belief that if they work hard enough, if they hustle enough, that their dreams WILL come true.
Those that don’t have it… it just seems half-baked. They have this great idea but aren’t really ever able to execute. They practice for hours but never really improve. They’re always on the cusp of doing something that could be great, but never really manage to start doing it.
Can you taste it?
It all goes back to how bad you want it, I think. Do you wake up thinking about it? Do you dream about it when you go to sleep at night? Does it invade otherwise unrelated conversations with friends? Does it excite you?
Are you a hustler, or are you just along for the ride?
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