Just because you’re doing hard work doesn’t mean anyone should care. It doesn’t mean you deserve money or recognition for it.
Any money and recognition you get for your hard work comes from the work being aligned with solving problems, meeting needs, meeting desires…aligning with a market and serving it.
Hard work can be done without consequence.
Contribution, however, is hard work with others in mind.
You got the gig because the people in charge, the client, the buyer, the booker, the agents all thought you should be the one up on stage.
So why do you get up there and still doubt you should be up there?
It’s not a great habit to lean on what strangers think of you to give you confidence…but feel free to remember the truth of the situation. The truth is everyone surrounding the event believes in what you’re doing enough to put their professional reputation next to your talent and skills on stage.
How long can I go without doing the thing I know I’m going to have to do?
We are well rehearsed in delaying the scary necessary next thing. We are well rehearsed in distraction…even sophisticated, elaborate distractions. We are well rehearsed in making sure no one else knows what we really should be doing with our time and energy.
We need to rehearse some different skills. We won’t be good at them at first but we’ll get better.
We’re interested in (and give our attention to) lots of different kinds of people…funny, serious, contemplative, unlikable, talented, clumsy, innovative, annoying, sensitive, naive, confident, rebellious.
The one none of us have time for is boring.
Anything other than boring and you’ve got a chance. A chance to find a group of people who are already interested in the reason you’re not boring.
The good thing about the ideas in your head is that you automatically get to use them as stepping stones to the next idea. Even the bad ones serve as the spring board for the better ones.
So when you’re with your team trying to write the song, figure out the plan, crack the riddle…it’s worth saying your bad ideas out loud. Your bad idea can shift the course just enough for you or someone else to come up with the better or best idea because of it.
And certainly when you feel stuck, bad ideas are your best friends…they’re the ones that are going to lead the way to being unstuck.