At the time, I had a two year old at home and a part time job. I also had this huge desire to focus on music, but no real sense of direction and very little space to figure out what moving forward could actually look like.
My days kept filling themselves before I had much say in the matter. There were responsibilities that needed my attention, and music was always the thing I was going to get serious about once life became a little less demanding.
Except life doesnât usually send you a formal notice that says, âGood news, Bree. Everything has calmed down. You may now pursue your dream.â
Then I found myself in a hospital room with none of my normal routines available to me.
I couldnât keep moving through the same days in the same way, so I finally had enough distance to look at my life honestly. I thought about what I wanted music to become and how long I had already been waiting for the right time to begin.
Those 11 days gave me room to reconsider my priorities. When I returned home, I didnât want music to slip back into the background again.
That experience became an important turning point in starting my music career in earnest, and it taught me something Iâve had to relearn many times since.
It is incredibly easy to get pulled into a routine without realizing that the routine has become a rut.
A full and responsible life can easily look like forward motion. Your days are packed and plenty gets done, yet months can pass while the music you keep saying you want to make room for is still waiting in the same place.
The excuse changes with the season. Work needs to settle down before the album comes out, or you need to feel more prepared before contacting venues. Soon, your music is tied to a future milestone that keeps moving farther away.
Time plays tricks on our minds because we assume we will have plenty of it later.
We picture this future season when the circumstances will be better and weâll finally be able to give music the attention it deserves. What we forget is how much could happen between now and then if we stopped treating that future milestone as the official starting line.
Even if you donât have time to record an entire album right now, you could finish the lyrics to one song, schedule a recording session, choose a producer, or set a release date for the first single. These may not feel impressive in the moment, but that work adds up while you are fitting it into the life you have now.
Iâm not saying this because Iâm always fully present and immune to the whir of regular life rhythms. I get lulled into autopilot too, which is one reason I go to Maine every summer.
Our family has a cabin there, and although I still do some work while Iâm away, I try to limit it to the work I genuinely enjoy. Being in a different place interrupts my usual patterns long enough for me to notice what Iâve been doing without thinking about it.
That distance helps me notice which parts of my routine still belong in my life and which ones I have continued out of habit. It also becomes much easier to see what is important to me but keeps losing out to whatever feels most urgent that day.
Thankfully, you donât need an 11 day hospital stay or a flight across the country to create that kind of interruption.
You can build smaller pattern interrupts into your regular life.
1. Go for a walk and leave room for your own thoughts
Some of my best ideas come to me while Iâm walking.
I usually listen to podcasts, and I highly recommend mine, of course. But there are moments when something I hear sparks an idea that feels worth following. When that happens, I turn off the podcast and go deeper.
It can be tempting to keep consuming more information, but sometimes your mind needs enough quiet to follow the thread that has already appeared. I let the idea develop while I walk, and often it becomes something I would never have reached if I had kept filling every second with someone elseâs voice.
2. Give yourself a simple overnight retreat
You could go on Priceline or Hotels.com, find an inexpensive room on a random night of the week in your town or nearby suburb, and give yourself a small break from the surroundings that keep triggering your usual routines.
It doesnât need to be a luxury retreat, and you donât need a detailed plan for every hour.
The point is to create a little separation from the normal input of your life so you can hear what you actually think. Bring something to write in, but donât make the night into another assignment. There are no rights or wrongs. Just escape.
3. Put an artist date on your calendar
Julia Cameron writes about artist dates in The Artistâs Way. The idea is to spend time by yourself doing something playful or interesting that feeds your creativity.
There doesnât have to be an outcome attached to it.
When your mind gets a break from all the responsibilities and âshoulds,â you may start noticing possibilities that were hard to see while you were busy trying to keep up with everything.
4. Let fresh eyes and ears into your bubble
We all have blind spots, especially when weâve been trying to figure everything out alone.
From inside your own routine, extra effort can look like the answer even when the real problem is where that effort is going. A simpler route may already be available, but it is difficult to recognize after you have been staring at the same plan for months.
It is hard to see those things when you are standing in the middle of your own bubble.
That is where the input of other musicians and an experienced mentor can change everything. Someone else can ask the question you havenât thought to ask or point out that the strategy youâve been faithfully following doesnât fit your actual goal.
Those are often the small but mighty breakthroughs we have inside the Female Musician Accelerator.
Sometimes a woman comes in believing she needs to add more to her already crowded schedule, and what she really needs is help deciding what she can stop doing.
Another may realize that she has been spreading her attention across too many areas when one focused next step would move her forward much faster.
You donât always need a complete overhaul. You may need someone who can help you see your current path more clearly and give you permission to re-evaluate and re-vamp.
If that kind of outside perspective and support would help you break your own autopilot doom loop, you can take a look at the Female Musician Accelerator here:
âLearn more about the Female Musician Acceleratorâ
And just so you know I practice what I preach, while I was in Maine in late June I decided it was time for ME to join a new one-year mastermind program for my business (similar to FMA) because I KNOW I need fresh perspectives so I don't make costly mistakes by operating in an echo chamber.
I would love for the Female Musician Accelerator to be a perspective shifter and positive pattern interrupt for you!
Sometimes one intentional interruption is enough to remind you that YOU still have agency in your own future, especially when it comes to your music career.
Always in your corner,
â<3 Bree
PS: If you prefer to read FEM Friday on Substack, you can Subscribe Hereâ
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