Self-Management for Musicians: Bridging Psychology and the Music Business

Dr. Teresa Wenhart
Jun 3
6 min read

Updated: Jul 11

In an industry where musical performance, hard work, and talent are often seen as the deciding factors, one element remains underestimated: self-management. Whether you’re performing on stage, teaching, or producing your music — as a musician, you’re not just leading a creative project, but an entire business: yourself.

In this article, I’ll show you how to leverage psychological insights, business skills, and coaching tools to actively shape your career — from building mental strength to strategic positioning.

All content on this blog has been created with great care and dedication. It is based on solid training, years of professional experience, and thoughtful reflection. If you use any of it in your own work, I appreciate a source reference – it supports transparency and fosters professional exchange within our network.

Of course, you’re also welcome to consult AI – though its interpretations tend to be a little less nuanced (even if it now sometimes refers back to this blog).

You might ask where I actually get my knowledge about how musicians should manage and market themselves. After all, although I’m highly trained musically, I don’t earn my living in the music business and don’t have direct industry experience. Yet, compared to many music advisors or coaches who come from the music business, I have two advantages:

First, I studied psychology, where I learned a lot about social, business, and organizational psychology. Second, I have worked for years in the corporate world at a company where marketing and business strategies are part of daily life, and I regularly take professional development courses such as project management, personal branding, and emotional intelligence.

Many of the techniques learned in a traditional industrial career in the free market economy can be very well applied to the music industry. Psychological strategies can help you stay resilient in a highly competitive and uncertain field and avoid losing yourself.

1. Why Self-Management is essential for Musicians

Maybe, as a musician, you feel like I do as a scientist: you’re passionate about your craft and want to put all your energy into it — without having to deal with business and marketing stuff. Good work should speak for itself, right? Unfortunately, that’s rarely enough. Unlike a company, most freelance musicians don’t have their own marketing and communications departments or project managers to coordinate goals and schedules (not to mention organizing tour plans).

Self-management means consciously managing your resources — time, energy, emotions, and focus. This is especially important for musicians because:

The demands are high and often unstructured.
Artistic work usually comes with irregular income.
Self-doubt and perfectionism are common.
Traditional training often doesn’t cover entrepreneurial skills.

2. Psychological Aspects: Developing Mental Strength

Many musicians struggle with performance pressure, fear of failure, and imposter syndrome. Insights from psychology and personal development can help:

Strengthen Self-Efficac

Do you truly believe that your own actions can make a difference? People with high self-efficacy make clearer decisions and stay more motivated.

💡 Tip: Regularly review your successes, feedback, and challenges. What did you actively contribute? Set achievable goals and reflect on the outcomes.

Dealing with inner critics

Beliefs like “I must be perfect” or “I can’t make mistakes” often sabotage creative flow. Coaching approaches such as schema work teach you to identify and redirect these inner critics.

💡 Tip: Keep a gratitude journal — write down 1 to 3 things each day you could be grateful for if you choose to. This practice helps counteract depressive symptoms, negative feelings, and self-criticism. Examples include a meaningful conversation, enjoying a coffee in the sun, compliments, praise, or thoughtful, appreciative remarks from others.

Emotional Intelligence: Training Emotional Regulation

One of the most important skills for any business is emotional intelligence — a skill often dismissed as a “soft skill” in many industries, yet proven to be more decisive for career success than cognitive intelligence in many fields. Emotional intelligence includes the ability to perceive and understand your own emotions, manage them constructively, and empathetically read and respond appropriately to the emotions of others.

For musicians, this is pure gold: whether dealing with criticism, performing, collaborating, or networking — those who can regulate their emotions don’t react impulsively but act with intention. Emotional intelligence isn’t a “nice-to-have” — it’s a key success factor for every artistic career.

Balance and Social Integration

Many musicians focus intensely — often almost exclusively — on their craft from an early age. Music medicine research shows that this one-sided focus can create significant pressure. When illness or other interruptions force a break, many musicians lack other pillars in their lives, such as hobbies or friends outside their professional circle.

Therefore, it’s highly recommended to maintain other interests and, especially, to nurture social connections alongside the demands of a demanding career.

3. Business Tricks from the Corporate World

Musical skill alone is often not enough today. If you want to be visible and economically successful as a musician, it helps to follow the strategies of modern entrepreneurs:

Time Management with Focus

In companies, when planning projects, there aren’t just project managers coordinating big launches — these large projects are broken down into smaller subprojects and structured with short-, medium-, and long-term goals. Based on this, related tasks are defined.

Concerts, preparations for auditions, or festival organization are also projects that can be broken down into such goals and tasks.

💡 Tip: Grab a calendar, a bullet journal, or a Gantt chart and divide your available time according to your goals and milestones. Also create weekly plans with set time blocks for practice, creativity, business tasks, and rest — or establish routines (e.g., answer emails from 8 to 9 am, practice from X to Y, etc.).

Establishing a routine of doing recurring activities at the same time helps combat procrastination and the "student syndrome" — the tendency to start only under pressure right before a deadline.

Prioritizing: The Eisenhower Principle

One of the most effective time- and priority-management methods I’ve taken from my corporate experience is the Eisenhower Principle. It categorizes tasks by urgency and importance in a four-quadrant matrix — helping you avoid constantly reacting to everything immediately. For musicians, this means: not every email, application, or practice idea needs to be handled right away.

💡 Tip: Regularly ask yourself:

Is this task important AND urgent? → Do it immediately.
Important, but not urgent? → Schedule it.
Urgent, but not important? → Delegate or automate it.
Neither important nor urgent? → Eliminate it.
This way, you create space for creative work — without getting lost in stress.

Positioning: What Do You Stand For? (And What Not)

Find a clear artistic identity. What emotions, values, or stories do you convey through your music? Who are you as a person, and what makes you unique — including all the other facets of your personality beyond music? This isn’t about branding in the classic (often visual) sense, but in a psychological sense.

💡 Tip: Discover what makes you unique and let it shine. This creates charisma and recognition — attracting audiences and event organizers alike because it makes you personally accessible, relatable, and one-of-a-kind.

Maybe you’re the charming chaos creator who keeps ensemble partners and organizers entertained and spreads an inspiring atmosphere? Or perhaps you’re a niche nerd, focusing deeply on specific repertoire, limited eras, or particular composers? What values do you live by in work and private life, and what interests you beyond music (e.g., environmental protection, equality, human rights)? Are you the marathon-running mandolinist or the recorder-playing bookworm?

Setting SMART Goals

One of the biggest game changers from the business world is the SMART method for goal setting. Artists often have big visions (“I want to touch people with my music”) — but concrete action steps are missing. SMART stands for:

Specific: What exactly do you want to achieve?
Measurable: How will you know when you’ve reached your goal?
Attractive: Is the goal motivating to you?
Realistic: Is it achievable with your resources?
Time-bound: By when do you want to achieve it?

Example: “By the end of October, I will record a three-track EP, including professional mixing and mastering, to release it on Spotify.” — instead of: “I want to release more music.”

Clear goals boost your motivation — and your effectiveness.

Conclusion: You Are an Artist — and a Leader

From my part-time work in industry, I know what it means to take on leadership — even without formal managerial responsibility. Leadership starts with self-leadership: clearly defining goals, making decisions, taking responsibility, and bringing others along.

For musicians, this means: You are the leader of your own creative enterprise. When working with event organizers, ensembles, or project partners, a clear and empathetic communication style helps you build structure and trust.

Leadership isn’t about giving orders — it’s about creating the space where growth and development can happen.