Two nights ago, I sat and barely watched, hanging my head as my beloved Tampa Bay Lightning got crushed by the Colorado Avalanche in Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Finals. If it was that painful for me as a fan, I can imagine what it was like being on the bench and in the locker room.
While there’s still quite an uphill battle ahead, the good news is, the two teams play again tonight and so – unlike football where you have a week in between games to have your most recent defeat hanging over you – the loss from Saturday night can be put in the past.
If you’re a performer and you have a bad show, for whatever reason, it’s easy to really let that weight settle in on your shoulders. Or if you’re a content creator and, say, you have lots of equipment malfunctions or a challenging guest you’re interviewing or one of those ‘everything that can go wrong will go wrong’ days, it can get to you very quickly if you let it.
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It’s almost a ritual for me to watch Tampa Bay Head Coach Jon Cooper’s press conference the next morning on the Lightning app. I like to watch him talk about what he saw from behind the bench during the previous night’s game. Yesterday I listened with great interest as the media asked him to make sense of the team performing so poorly in the loss Saturday night. He made sure to remind all members of the press who were there that it’s just one game and that it doesn’t matter if the final score was 7-0 or (as was the case in Game 1) 4-3 in overtime. He then added that the task at hand was to look ahead to Monday night and get ready for Game 3.
If you release a new single, just like the Lightning wanting to win, it’s obvious that you want the song to do well. Just like they don’t go through training camp, preseason, and the long regular season to get knocked out of the playoffs, you didn’t spend time writing and recording the song just to see it have mediocre results.
However, there’s always the next song. There’s always the next gig. There’s always the next video, TV show interview, podcast recording, or other step in what you do that you just have to keep working and moving towards.
Despite the concept of the “one-hit wonder,” you’re not defined by the success or failure of one song or one live show or one bad day creating content.
It also conjures up memories of the blog I posted on here six weeks ago called, “Mental Health Challenges are Real in the Indie Creator World.”
Sometimes a change of scenery will do wonders for an athlete (getting traded to a different city/team) and that very well could apply to your live shows too. One bad venue could be completely negated by going in with a fresh attitude to the next place and finding lots of success. Remember too with new songs that it’s the one(s) you think will be a hit that end up missing your expectations and the song(s) that you don’t have as strong a feeling about that take off and pleasantly surprise you.
On Episode 436 of my weekly “Now Hear This Entertainment” podcast that comes out the day after tomorrow, you’ll hear award-winning singer, songwriter, ukulele player Victoria Vox tell me, “I think the self-critic voice is very loud, and when you’re a creator, when you’re the player, when it’s you and it’s your voice in your own head telling you it’s dumb, it’s a bad idea, if I can be that voice of reason” (at her workshops) then it helps people come out of that negative mindset. This is why it’s so important to have someone you trust and admire to bounce things off. Whatever you’re feeling so horribly about might just be a case of being too close to it.
If the Lightning sat around dwelling on their lopsided loss from two nights ago, would they forfeit tonight’s game? Absolutely not. There’s a great reward ahead for them if they can get back on the right track.
Similarly, great things are out there for you to accomplish, so leave the past in the past and keep moving forward towards some of those holy grails you have in your sights.
For more than 18 years I’ve been helping independent artists, authors, podcasters, entrepreneurs, and more from around the U.S. Take advantage of all my experience and book a private, one-on-one, online video consultation with me and let’s work through the challenges that are holding you back. Schedule a confidential session with me so we can put our heads together and make sure you’re building momentum and gaining notice for what you’re doing.