PROCESSING THE MIRROR IMAGE

How often should you look in the mirror?

Remember when there were only a few ways to actually see yourself ? If you’re old enough to remember the days before digital cameras, social media, and the internet, you’ll know what we’re talking about.

If you’re young enough to wonder how those days ever existed, let’s paint this scenario for you.

If you wanted to see yourself in the 90’s, you had to..

1. Catch a glimpse of yourself in a well-polished spoon (or look in an actual mirror)

2. Wait for your film to be developed and hope that shot of you at your birthday party actually turned out

3. Be rich enough to own a camcorder so you could make your own home movies

4. Be famous enough that other people took pictures of you.

There may be a few additions to this list, but not too many. The reality is it used to be so much harder to actually see yourself than it is now. For better and worse.

Staring at our own reflection has a downside. We obsess over it. We criticize it. We focus on the flaws. We compare our own reflection with our perception of everybody else. And reflection and perception are not always great lovers. One is true and one is a subjective interpretation, skewed heavily by headspace.

If you’re an artist who says ‘staring at my own reflection is bad for my mental health’, we hear you. Your own headspace is precious. It should be guarded and protected. Nothing we’re about to say is meant to devalue the idea that everyone has a different capacity for reflection. Artists are forced to look at themselves more often than the average person, but that doesn’t mean you can’t look away when you need to.

Here’s the thing though. If you can figure out how to navigate the negative side effects of taking a long, hard look at your own reflection, you just might see an opportunity for growth. That’s a significant upside.

It’s really hard to progress when you don’t process. Studying what you do, how you present it to the world, and how it all fits together is how you understand where the tweaks need to happen. If you’re too afraid to look, you might miss the tweaks. Or worse yet, someone else might come along and tweak it for you based on their own perception.

Instagram. TikTok. YouTube. Your camera roll. The camera roll on the phone of every fan that comes to a show. Your image is everywhere. You’ve become content. The things you say, the songs you play, the clothes you wear, the captions you write, the GRWM and the BTS and even the IDGAF stuff — it all sits there waiting for you to watch it back.

You could spend an entire day just watching yourself. We don’t advise it, but we do suggest there’s value in finding a healthy way to take a look.

If you can replace ‘obsess, criticize and compare’ with ‘digest, process, and tweak’ there is a benefit to digging in on who you’ve been up to this point — heck, under those conditions, we even recommend it. There are things to learn about who we’ve been that will help us get closer to who we want to be.

If you can’t replace the negative with the positive, we get it. This isn’t a push, it’s a nudge. Or maybe a nudge, then a gentle push. Do what you gotta do to feel good more than you feel bad. If that means you can’t look yet, then you can’t look yet. Maybe get a trusted friend to do it and listen to what they have to say. Consider staring at your own reflection a bit like eating at a buffet. Despite the overwhelming amount on offer, starting off with what you can handle, is a lot better than consuming so much you make yourself sick.

Honestly, we’re glad it’s not the 90’s anymore. The view is pretty damn interesting when everyone can afford a camcorder. But with so much to look at, so much to compare to, so much to criticize, it can be hard to wanna look in the mirror. Learning to do it constructively is the key to understanding yourself better.

The better you understand you, the more other people will too.

THE VOICE IN YOUR HEAD

What kind of voices are in your head ?

As artists you end up with a choir of voices in your ear. Producers, labels, managers, fans. That one uncle that tells you all you need is more exposure.

There are a lot of (mostly) well-meaning voices throwing their pennies in the pond hoping you’ll listen, two cents at a time.

But when all those voices shut up, what do you hear in the silence ?

What’s your own head telling you ?

Theoretically, your own voice is the most important. It’s the one that sets the course for where you wanna go and how you’re gonna get there. It should be the voice that leads the chorus and signals direction. You’re singing lead, not standing in the back gently crooning BGV’s that’ll get buried in the mix.

Practically though ? Your own voice scares the shit out of you sometimes. We know that’s true because we’ve been artists too.

When you follow your own lead and get lost, you’re the one on the hook for finding your way back. That’s some heavy pressure. And pressure has a way of messing with the gauges.

Of all the outside voices vying for space in your head, it’s often your own voice that’s beating you up. Tearing you down. Sowing the seeds of doubt and turning on the sprinkler. You can be your biggest champion, and your own worst enemy. Often in the same 24 hour period.

As an artist, you don’t get to leave your work at the office. You bring it home with you. You tuck it into bed and sleep with it. You wake up and make it coffee while it stares at you from across the table. Silently. Your work sits there at breakfast, a reflection that is supposed to mirror you, but somehow gets warped every time you take your eyes off it. The work needs constant attention. You are the work. The work is you. When you can’t separate from that, the voices never stop. If there was an easy answer, we’d offer it up. But there really isn’t, it’s supposed to be hard.

So here’s our singular piece of advice - Learn To Discern. Discerning which voices to listen to and when, is the start of trusting your own judgement. Not everything you think is good. The more you are able to discern the helpful from the harmful, the louder your real voice gets and the more confidently you can speak. About who you are, where you wanna go, and how you wanna get there.

No one knows better than you.

The more you’re able to discern the productive parts of your own voice, the more you’ll be able to discern and edit the voices coming from the outside too. It’s hard to trust someone else when you don’t trust yourself.

You don’t suck.

Your ideas don’t suck.

Your vision doesn’t suck.

Tell those voices to fuck off.

They won’t leave entirely, but at least give them seats in the nosebleeds where you can’t hear them scream.

Save your VIP passes for the voices that tell you you’re enough.

Your heart is enough.

Your ideas are enough.

What you feel is enough.

Not enough to be someone else, but enough to be you.

Learn to discern the voices that give you the confidence to be the version of you that matters most, and then watch what happens.

The reflection gets better.

Not perfect. But better.

Isn’t it great being an artist ?

Mirrors are broken.

Heads are loud.

The creative burden is not comparatively extraordinary, but it is unique in its heaviness.

Waking up everyday to do this makes you part of a select group of flawed, messed up, beautiful, special human beings.

For a profession built on performing, the hardest work might actually be listening.

It’ll never be easy, but it gets a little easier when you start to pick out the voices worth listening to.

2 SIDES OF THE SAME FENCE

SIDE ONE

Looks like a fine place to sit — until you get a sore ass. We all hate folks who sit on fences. And for good reason. But sometimes (and I mean SOMEtimes), it’s my favourite place to be.

I’ll start with the important part — indecision ain’t doin shit for your career or for your personal wellbeing. Wow, jeez sorry, am I allowed to swear on here? Maybe I’ll soften it a bit… at every fork in the road, at every turn, and every step of the way, there’s a path forward for you. But in order to take the path forward, you have to actually step forward. Staring at your options indefinitely is a sure way to stand still. I’m pretty sure you don’t want that.

Indecision is the boulder we push up a mountain. If we’re not actively working against it, it’s sure to push you right back to where you started.

Now for the part where I disagree with myself — what else is new. There’s a sweet spot, a window of decision making that’s worth taking your time on; worth sitting on the fence for at least a sec. Cause the best time to see what’s on both sides is before you get off it. It can be hard enough to make up our minds about so many of the little decisions we make on a day to day — not to mention the big ones — but when we take a few moments to sit there, even though it’s uncomfortable, we gain a bit of perspective on what our options actually look like. How green IS that grass actually?

There might be an obvious choice. Maybe one path is clearly a well-worn. A that a few of the folks you look up to have taken pretty recently. Even if that’s the case, it’s always worth exploring your options. Maybe the better path is actually overgrown and a little rough simply because some folks are too scared of a thorn or two. Or maybe you’re the type of person who likes to go against the grain and you’re inclined towards the dirtier side of the fence. It’ll serve you well to understand why that ‘status quo’ side of the fence is so popular. Maybe this time it’s worth considering. Either way, understanding our options at every turn only helps us learn something new or at very least, become more confident about which side of the fence we choose.

I really like that part of the [job]. I like playing devil’s advocate for the choices we’re about to make. I like looking at both sides, both options ahead, all the alternatives, and seriously considering “what would it look like if we were doing things completely differently?” Or “what if we took the opposite approach?”. So yea, sometimes you’ll find me perched up someplace, trying to find a proper vantage point. Somewhere that I can see enough of both sides to know where I want to be.

Then you’ll see me get off the fence. Every time. Before my ass starts to hurt.

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SIDE TWO

Indecision is a killer with a BB gun.

It might not be lethal, but it still fucking hurts.

Decisions are huge right ? Life altering. Career defining. Course changing. They can build a bridge or burn one down.

When we face decisions of a certain magnitude, they don’t just feel big, they feel mountainous. Glacial. We see the tip of the iceberg but are left guessing at what’s underneath. It’s scary. It’s anxiety ridden. And it’s confidence shaking.

Decisiveness requires us to trust ourselves. Despite the surface bravado most of us portray on stage, in the studio, and on socials, we’re not really as confident we want others to believe.

I think that’s why we agonize so much. It’s not because the decision is so hard, it’s because trusting ourselves is harder. I’ve always felt like decisions aren’t really as difficult as we make them out to be. I have a gut feeling that we often know what we want to do quite quickly, and then spend the rest of the time trying to talk ourselves in and out of that outcome. Pretending we’re on the fence because we don’t know, while we’re really sitting on the fence because we’re scared of which way we know we wanna go.

Before you go and read this as critical, let me say this - fear is real. It is healthy (to an extent) and it is a major factor in self protection and preservation. You need to listen to it sometimes. You just don’t want to let it dictate the terms of your life.

I’ve tried to become a more decisive person. Not because it would serve me well professionally (even though it does) but because it serves me better personally. I’ve been learning to trust my gut, to trust the instincts I’ve been given and have built up over time. To trust that neither failure or success is a permanent place. A decision that ends in failure isn’t always a bad one. And one that ends in success doesn’t automatically make it the right one.

How we measure success is going to have a lot to do with the decisions we make and how we evaluate them in post. If success is defined by money, status or public perception, we’re gonna make a series of decisions geared towards those things. If our success is defined by less tangible but more meaningful things, we’ll make a different set of decisions to get there. And stay there.

If you’re on the fence about the direction your career is headed, I encourage you to get off. Sit there too long and you’ll have splinters in your ass. You’ll also waste more of the life you’re given than you can probably afford to. Do not give into the ruse that we have ‘all the time in the world’, we don’t. We have a small amount of time to do the things we feel called to do and be the people we feel called to be. Then the phone rings one day, and it’s over. You can read that as depressing or you can read it as an encouraging kick in the ass to take that step. Forwards or backwards.

Making the tough decision doesn’t mean you always go for it. Decisiveness isn’t always saying yes. Sometimes we know we wanna say no but we agonize over the impact our no will have on somebody else’s yes. Other times, being decisive means saying yes and trusting that you’ll figure it out. It means jumping in with both feet because something feels right, even before it looks right.

I remember my dad telling me years ago that he believes humans have an unbelievable ability to adapt and change, when we want to. I think he’s right. Knowing that should make decisions a little less scary. If things don’t work out the way we hoped, we have the ability to make another decision to recalibrate our course. Maybe we’re starting over from the back of the pack, but the chance to keep going is still there. Sometimes that recalibration is forced on us by the decisions or actions of others, but either way, we’re better adapters than we give ourselves credit for.

Look back on your life and you’ll see a series of good and bad decisions, there’s no way you’ve ended up where you are without making both. Doesn’t that give you the confidence to get off the fence ? You’re still here. You’re reading this. You’re fighting another day. For what you love. For who you love. For yourself. That’s what we want right ? To be in the ring. There’s no fence in the ring. There’s just you and whatever you’ve decided to take on. It’s scary. It can be humbling. And it doesn’t always end in victory. But fuck it feels good.

Trust yourself.

Pound for pound, no one knows you better than you.