There's a classic psychology demonstration where people are shown a white piece of paper with a single small dot on it and asked to describe what they see. Nearly everyone describes the dot. The vast, uninterrupted white space around it barely gets a mention.
We do this constantly in life, and especially in our music career.
One rejection and suddenly we're not cut out for this. One thin crowd and suddenly it's crystal clear that nobody likes what we do. In fact, we suck!
One release that is met with crickets and our music isn't good.
We fixate on the dot like it's the whole picture, when really it's the smallest part of it. A tiny blemish within a sea of possibility.
What I didn't know in that moment — and what you don't know when you get the discouraging comment, the venue rejection, the awkward show moment — is anything about the other side of it
Whether that guy at the station was having a bad day. Whether he was facing a mountain of submissions and wanted an excuse to say no. Whether my genre wasn't his taste. Whether my cover art had already turned him off before the music started.
I had no idea. I still don't.
And the story my brain told me had nothing to do with any of that. It was just a story, played out into a false (or at least unconfirmed) conclusion.
This is what's called the domino mindset, and it's sneaky because it feels like logic.
One thing falls and the rest follow so naturally you don't even notice you're the one knocking them down with your negativity spiral.
It doesn't just darken your mood for an afternoon either. It makes you drag your feet on the next pitch. It makes you sit on a song for another six months. It makes you talk yourself out of following up, showing up, putting it out there, until eventually the music just lives on your hard drive, heard by no one.
Which is not just a loss for you, but a loss for all your fans and potential fans.
So if you're in it right now, here's what actually helps.
Name it for what it is. Not a verdict. Not confirmation of your worst suspicions about yourself. One data point, from one person, on one day, filtered through circumstances you know nothing about.
That's the whole thing. It doesn't get to be more than that unless you give it power.
Make yourself zoom out, deliberately, even when you don't want to. The dot is always going to pull your focus. That's just how we're wired. You have to choose to look at the rest of the page.
What have the last several shows actually looked like, taken together? What's the real arc of your releases, not just the last one? Who has shown up, replied, told you something true about how your music landed for them? That evidence exists. It just doesn't announce itself the way the hard moments do.
Know whose feedback actually counts before you need to figure it out in a raw moment of vulnerability. There's a real difference between a gatekeeper who doesn't know you, doesn't listen to your genre, and has a hundred submissions to get through and a fan who's been following your work for years, a mentor who understands what you're trying to do, or a room full of people who stayed after the show to find you.
Not all of it should weigh the same. You need to sort it before you assign meaning.
Find your person. The one you can call when your brain is building its case against you and you need someone to remind you what's actually true. Everyone doing something real needs at least one of those.
Truthfully, that's why I built my community for women in music. So I can be that person to talk you off the ledge...to keep that domino mindset from taking you out of the game.
AND there are lots of other women who are going through the same stuff who can see things from the outside and help you gain a healthy perspective again.
One person's opinion, one slip up on stage, one lack-luster release doesn't get to write your ending.
You have the power to call BS on that sneaky domino mindset.
Always in your corner,
​<3 Bree
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