Have you ever wondered how some musicians become highly successful? Although not all successful musicians take the same path to achieve their dreams , every one of them follows the very same fundamental principles to become more successful.

Here are the five things all professional musicians share in common and what you can learn from them to become a highly successful musician yourself:

Successful Musician Secret #1: Do Not Invest Time Exclusively Into Your Musical Skills While Ignoring Other Important Skills

The vast majority of musicians invest almost all their time into building better musical skills, but forget to invest an appropriate amount of time into developing other skills that are crucial for making it in the music industry. Here is why they do this:

1. They think their chances for making it in the music industry depend almost entirely on how good their musical skills are. Even though this is true to some extent, musical skills alone are not enough to become a highly successful pro musician. If you never invest time into developing all the elements needed for building and sustaining a successful career in music, you will have good musical skills, but no music career at all.

2. Many musicians haven’t got a clue about what record companies are looking for in them. More on this later.

Musicians who have already reached their goals and made it in the music industry understand how they were able to do these things by doing more than just practice music. While they were practicing their musical skills, they were also taking action to work on all the elements needed for music career success.
If you’ve already got very good musical skills or even if you’re at an intermediate level, you must start investing at least 50% of your practice time into understanding how to grow your music career. Be sure not to waste your time on things that will not grow your music career by finding a great music career mentor .

Professional Musician Secret #2: Develop A Positive Mindset

Mindset is the key trait that differentiates pro musicians from amateurs. Pro musicians understand very well that the music industry is an entrepreneurial industry that works by exchanging value between musicians and music companies. Developing a great set of relationship skills is one of the best things to do for building a successful career in this industry. Wondering how to develop these skills?

Here is what the pros do:

  • They understand how to utilize a win-win mindset so they can help companies, bands and other musicians in significant ways. This skill is the ability to help others (musicians, music companies, etc.) while achieving your own goals in the process.
  • They understand how to manage and reduce the risk others take on while working with them.

You will see tons of progress in your music career as soon as you learn how to use a win-win mindset in every action you take. To learn more about how to develop this mindset, read this great article on how to become a professional musician .

Professional Musician Secret #3: Do Not Let Your Fears Hold You Back

Professional musicians concentrate mainly on their musical goals and take action in order to achieve them.

Non-professional musicians think about what they do not want to happen to them. Instead of focusing on their goals, they focus on what they want to avoid. They hope to get discovered by an A&R rep, and think the only way to do this is to get lucky or find the right connections in the music business .

The two types of mindsets above are massively different. The goals oriented / positive mindset encourages you to do what you need to do, learn what you need to learn and develop anything you need to develop in order to reach your goals…while the negative type of mindset prevents you from ever moving forward.

Learn how to overcome common music career fears that might hold you back from achieving your goals.

Professional Musician Secret #4: Understand What Music Companies Need And Look For In You

Most of the time, musicians don not know nor think about what record companies want from them. Usually they only think about making it, how to do it, what they need... and all about them, them and more of them. This selfish mindset may be the death of your music career if you’re not careful.

Musicians who have reached success have learned what music companies look for . Then they have focused on developing the required skills for becoming the best possible person for record companies to work with. In the end, they are able to join the best music labels, sell a lot of albums overseas and make a huge amount of money with their music. As soon as YOU start implementing these same approaches, achieving success in the music industry will be much easier.

Professional Musician Secret #5: Start From The Last Step

Many musicians think they need to design their long term musical goals starting from where they are now ... all the way up to their end goals. Professional musicians do NOT do this.

Successful musicians start designing their strategy from their end goal. They imagine themselves with their goal already achieved and then find out the last step required for reaching that goal. Then, they find the step needed before the last step and so on. They literally create their music career success strategy from the end to where they are currently. Learn more about this and other types of goal planning techniques by reading this article about achieving all your musical goals .

How About You?

You just discovered five key elements that all successful musicians share in common. Now it is time to find out how close you are to making it in the music industry. Find out now by taking this free music business assessment .

After taking the assessment, I will give you my feedback on it so you can know how to improve your music career strategy and become a successful musician.

Author's Bio: 

About The Author:
Tom Hess is an online guitar teacher, music career mentor and guitar player. He trains and mentors from all over the world on how to develop a successful career in music . On his musician improvement website you can find a lot of free music career resources and music industry articles .