Why Artist's Don't (like to) Invest In Themselves 🥺

If there’s one thing that’s certain, it’s that self-investment, whether monetary or not, is the most valuable thing we can ever do as human beings. But, when it comes to musicians, why do so many of us make excuses for not investing in ourselves? The answers may be deeper than you think, but we urge you to question yourself after you’ve read this article!

“I Don’t Have Money”

There’s no doubt that some of us just don’t have the money to invest in our music careers, but what I can’t tolerate is what you’re doing in the hours you’re free on things that don’t require money. If you have time to scroll through Instagram after work, school or during your other responsibilities, then you have time to invest in your own work. What artists forget, is that investment doesn’t just mean in terms of money. Time is a valuable form of investment, and there are tools out there for free that you can leverage. Identify what you’re doing in your free hours, then focus on tasks that could build your career rather than take from it.

Plus, you’re not fooling anyone when you say you can’t afford an E-Book, course, or paid-ads, and yet you’re somehow flexing with the new Jordans or Balenciaga’s on your Instagram page. The only person you’re taking from is yourself.

You Don’t Think You’re Worthy Of Success

This one’s a tough pill to swallow as many of us think we’re automatically programmed for success from birth and will be successful no matter what. The truth is, our childhood plays a huge part in our “lack of self-investment” as adults, and here’s why. From birth (and even before birth) to around 7-8-years-old, our brains are in a vibrational state called “Theta”. See the image below.

According to Doctor Bruce Lipton, a great way to describe the state of “Theta” is simply: Hypnosis. We’ve all heard of hypnosis before right? The reason it’s so vital to know the hypnotic effects of our parents, peers, siblings, and loved ones so early on in life is that they wire our brains to how THEY see the world. Think about this for a moment, from the day we’re born till age eight, how many rules and protocols are we taught? We’re taught to cross the road when we see a green man or taught to shake someone’s hand when we meet them or to close the fridge once we’ve taken what we needed from it. These are just three of the thousands of rules we’re taught and programmed with.

The crazy part here is that we’re also programmed with the negative rules, too. For example, Dr. Bruce Lipton says that you can have a poor child that tries his best to become rich his whole life, and yet still many factors will pull him back to poverty or poor habits because his childhood programmed him/her this way. And you can have the son of a wealthy man that’s stupid with money his entire life, and yet his exposure to wealth will ensure his comfortable survival as an adult.

Even crazier… If we have parents who are telling us things like, “Rich people are greedy”, “We’re humble people and never like rich people”, or “We don’t need money, we have all we need”, they’re actively programming your mind to live within their confined limits - So, quite literally, no matter how well you do, you will most definitely self-sabotage any good things that happen to you and convince yourself you’re not worthy of it. Think about this, why do 70%+ of NBA athletes go broke 3-5 years after retiring? We’re talking big ballers with contracts of $30,000,000+ throughout their careers. How does someone with so much wealth lose it all? - Childhood programming. Money habits, poor coping mechanisms, etc.

Now you see how exposure to bad habits from childhood can affect our success as adults. But, it’s up to YOU to understand what you’re exposed to, and consciously change it.

The Good News

The good news about all of this is that you can reverse your programming. Firstly, I’d like to mention that your parents aren’t a direct problem. They did what they thought was best to help you survive in this world, and we owe them love, compassion and gratitude. Your enemy in this, however, is your old mindset. The mindset you don’t want to shake hands with every day anymore. The mindset that looks in the mirror and WANTS to succeed but keeps on getting pulled back over and over. I went through this, and still do from time to time, but I have some valuable tips that can help you.

1 - Identify habits you want to change

Do your parents/carers have poor spending habits or did they as you grew up? Did they have anger issues? Did they resort to drugs, alcohol or casual relationships to escape their pain? Start by identifying habits you notice that you now have, and write them down or make a mental note of them.

As children, we tend to copy our parent’s “stressful coping strategies”- in other words, what they did when they were stressed (drink, do drugs, etc.). If poor spending was one of them, look at your own financial position and notice how you spend when you’re stressed or in general. Have you built some wealth, or do you tend to spend it on things and always seem to live paycheck to paycheck?

A good place to start is realizing if you always tend to have money for things that take from yourself (drugs, drinking, gambling, designer clothing, and other non-essential things), but never money to invest in yourself.

2 - Act-On Each Habit Slowly

Because your brain has been programmed to work a certain way, it won’t lightly take to “change”. If, for example, the habit you wanted to change was self-investment, then you need to become very disciplined about what you spend on. You need to spend less on crap and invest in things that build you up. For example, Books, E-Books, Courses, Online tools/platforms, Paid Advertising, Stocks/Shares, A savings account, etc. You’re changing a generational pattern here. It will be hard but commit to it, and just GO!

I personally started adding a “Personal Tax” to my income, meaning, after the government takes their share, I tax myself 10% and invest that into something that can help me grow.

3 - Start Meditating

If anyone has told you that meditation is just boring and useless, let them think that while you reap the benefits of it. To be conscious of your childhood programming and poor habits, you need to practice actually being conscious. Meditation brings your focus to the present moment so that over time you become incredibly self-aware, focussed and calm. Over time, you’ll know what I mean - Assuming you start a simple 2-3 minute daily routine and build up to 10-15 mins daily at a minimum!

Tony Robbins said:

If you don’t have 10 minutes a day, then you don’t have a life.

Wrap-Up

Your goal after reading through, reflecting deeply and understanding yourself and your childhood programming more, is to identify which patterns you no longer wish to continue. Whether that’s self-investment, anger, poor coping mechanisms, etc.

The road ahead is tough, which is why only a handful of people ever reach super-stardom. It really isn’t easy, however, when you focus on doing the inner work required to build yourself up, only then will you be prepared for the emotionally taxing side of your growth/success. Get smart now, so the older you doesn’t suffer.