The 5 Musician Essentials of a Healthy Mindset to Avoid Scattering, Overwhelm and Burnout

The music industry can be incredibly demanding, and mental health is becoming a more significant concern for both artists and industry professionals. In 2025, avoiding musician burnout will be a top priority, with more resources and support systems available to help artists maintain their well-being. 

Musicians should prioritize self-care and seek professional help when needed to ensure a healthy and sustainable career.

As the music industry continues to shift from signed artists to artists on their own with the daunting task of building a career, there is an ever-growing concern that the insurmountable to-do list for the modern musician is officially out of control.

It’s an increasingly difficult balancing act to manage everything from keeping up with one’s artistry and craft to funding one’s own records to creating social media content and managing one’s time and career.

In addition, it takes a great deal of time, energy and resources to develop an artist’s career to the point of profit. As a result, financial instability is rife within the music industry. 

Combine that with the constant pressure from social media for artists to always be on and you have a situation that is ripe for overwhelm, stress and anxiety.

“Stress, anxiety, and depression were reported as the most commonly experienced negative emotions by independent music makers in relation to their music. What’s the biggest trigger, you might ask? Financial instability.” ~ Ashley Pointer, Berklee Edu 

Here are my 5 Mental Health Essentials for Musicians to Avoid Burnout and Overwhelm. 

1. Stop Trying to Do Everything All At Once 

One of the biggest sources of anxiety and depression is because the task list on your plate as an artist has reached epic propositions—it’s officially out of control. Humans were never meant to be this busy all of the time. 

Stop trying to do everything all at once all of the time. 

To help, I created a structure called the 4 Seasons of an Artist so you can focus on what’s most important and stop trying to do everything all the time. 

As an artist, your creativity rotates around different seasons. ❄️🍂🌷☀️

It’s important to understand the dynamic nature of the artistic process so you can know what energy and attention to bring to each phase.

The 4 Seasons of an Artist to cycle through like the 4 seasons of winter, spring, summer and fall are: 

1. Gathering: In the gathering season, your creativity will seem low, but this is a time when you are gathering new information or processing emotions or experiences. It’s a great time to let yourself roam and observe, and it always precedes a time of writing.
2. Writing: In writing season, the fountain is flowing, and you have so many ideas you can hardly write them all down. 
3. Recording: In this season, you are taking your lovely song bones and bringing them to life. 
4. Promoting: Whether touring, live streaming or sharing your music with the world, this is a season of coming out of your cave and braving the world with your new music. 

Once you can embrace what season you are in, it helps you focus your energy there instead of spreading yourself so thin trying to do it all at once.

The truth is it takes a lot of time and money to develop an artist’s career to the point of profit. As a result financial instability is rife within the music industry. 

Click here to learn more about our Artist Sanctuary Membership which is a positively minded monthly membership with access to an amazing global community of artists and experts in music.

2. Pace Yourself On Social Media

One of the biggest challenges when it comes to mental health is social media. 

Because social media is on 24/7, it gives artists the opportunity to promote at any time, but at the same time creates FOMO that can cause crippling anxiety and overwhelm. 

“We get a lot of people [musicians] that reach out for support that are affected by social media. The toxicity around trolling, but also the pressure of followers, likes, engagement because it seems to be the only thing that people care about anymore,” says Levers. “It’s really anxiety-inducing for many people. There are lots of people now that call the helpline who are like, ‘My mental health has deteriorated so much because of social media, I can’t cope.’” ~ Anneliese Harmon, General Manager of the Music Managers Forum (MMF)

Try this:  

• During the seasons of Writing and Recording keep social media at a minimum. Post consistently but only 2-3x a week just to keep your profiles reading on the algorithms —so you don’t go dark. When you go dark, it’s almost impossible to recover a platform in most cases. This way you can take advantage of being a part of social media so when you are ready to release you have an audience there to release to. However, you are not consumed by it during this time because you are focused on your craft.
• Then during the Promoting and Gathering seasons you can post up to 5x a week to build and grow your audience. This is a better way to use social media so it doesn’t use you. 

Managing social media is an important part of managing your mental health and using the tips above will help reduce overwhelm and anxiety.

3. Manage Your Expectations

One of the biggest challenges artists face is managing expectations and understanding the time required to become an artist. 

It takes time to build real artistry and skill. And it takes time to build a real career. It’s not all going to happen overnight—nor should it. The journey itself paves the path and there is valuable information you need to learn as you go. 

Malcolm Gladwell talked about the 10,000 hours of performing it took The Beatles to become The Beatles. A common theme that appears throughout Outliers is the “10,000-Hour Rule”, based on a study by Anders Ericsson. Gladwell claims that greatness requires enormous time, using the source of the Beatles’ musical talents. The Beatles performed live in Hamburg, Germany over 1,200 times from 1960 to 1964, amassing more than 10,000 hours of playing time, therefore meeting the 10,000-Hour Rule. 

Gladwell asserts that all of the time the Beatles spent performing shaped their talent, and quotes a Beatles’ biographer, Philip Norman, as claiming “So by the time they returned to England from Hamburg, Germany, ‘they sounded like no one else. It was the making of them.

There are typically about 2,080 working hours in a year for a full-time employee working 40 hours a week for 52 weeks. So, at full-time, 40 hours a week, it would take approximately 4 years to attain that level of artistry (which correlates with The Beatles climb). But with a day-job it will take longer. At part-time of 20 hours a week, it would take around 8 years to attain that level of atistry.  Now add the business career side—starting a business and developing your career—and add another few years. 

This is just an estimate, not a perfect calculation. But knowing this helps set priorities and manage expectations along the way. It is important to set the right expectations so that you do not fall into the overwhelm, depression, and anxiety that come from unrealistic or high expectations.

Creating a timeline and managing expectations is an important part of managing your mental health. Understanding the time it takes to fully develop your music and the business side of your career will help reduce overwhelm and anxiety.

Inside my 6 week artist development program, Step Up to the Spotlight, I have laid out a 52 Week Artist Development Plan along with a diagram that outlines the stages of your career and the key players and priorities of those phases. It reduces anxiety and overwhelm just to see the journey and what lies ahead. Click here to get access and for more information. 

4. Delegate is the Key to Avoiding Overwhelm

Stop trying to do everything yourself. Do what you are good at and delegate the rest. Initially you do everything, but as soon as you can, bring on assistance to help falling into the trap of doing everything yourself. 

Try this:  

1. Organize your daily tasks in a project management software like Asana or Trello (or if that’s too much just keep a running list somewhere). This will help you to see the tasks on your list so they don’t roll around in your mind and keep you up at night!
2. The next task is to prioritize your list. Put what is most important at the time. Overtime you’ll notice you never get to the bottom of the list. This is the perfect to do list to delegate when you are ready to bring on more team to help.
3. Hire a VA: I always recommend that when you are coming up upon a promoting cycle or are ready for some help, to hire a Virtual Assistant. Someone skilled in administrative tasks who can help you manage your release and overall daily admin tasks. Whether it’s sending out your newsletter, editing or uploading videos, or posting on social media, a little bit of help can go a long way!

Keeping a task list, prioritizing tasks and delegating them is an important part of managing your time which will help manage your mental health to reduce overwhelm and anxiety.

5. Find a Positively Minded Music Community

Anxiety always reduces when you are with like-minded people. One of the biggest issues artists have is not having other like-minds with whom to share challenges, information, resources and experiences. 

Click here to learn more about our Artist Sanctuary Membership which is a positively minded monthly membership with access to an amazing global community of artists and experts in music.

Resources: 
Music Support (UK) Music Support is a registered charity that helps peers who work in the UK music industry experiencing substance use, addiction and/or mental health challenges. We promote early intervention through Support Services, Education and Workshops. You are not alone.
https://www.musicsupport.org/ – Confidential Help Line: (800) 030-6789

Music Cares: The Recording Academy’s charity MusiCares provides a safety net of critical assistance for musicians and music industry professionals in times of need. MusiCares’ services and resources cover a wide range of financial, medical, and personal emergencies, and each case is treated with integrity and confidentiality. MusiCares also focuses the resources and attention of the music industry on human service issues that directly impact the health and welfare of the music community.

We Rise LA is an epic pop-up art and wellness initiative bringing together movers and shakers to spark a national discourse on mental healthcare as a civil right

Silence the Shame: Silence the Shame is an initiative founded by music industry veteran Shanti Das. We exist to empower and educate communities on mental health and wellness. With your help, we can make a difference. Learn more and get involved.

Backline: Backline connects music industry professionals and their families to organizations and care providers that specialize in mental health. Not only do they offer resources (like free meditation and yoga subscriptions for the music industry) and support groups, but Backline’s own mental health professionals work with individuals to create custom plans that take things like location and financial resources into account.

Nuçi’s Space aims to end the suicide epidemic and inspire a culture free of the stigma attached to brain illnesses and its sufferers. The organization does this by supporting a community-wide effort focused on education, prevention, and access to appropriate treatment. Nuçi’s Space specifically focuses on musicians and mental health, as co-founder Linda Phillips says that, “A creative mind is just a lot more temperamental. I think they feel things differently, sometimes more deeply.”

Sweet Relief: Sweet Relief Musicians Fund provides financial assistance to all types of career musicians and music industry workers who are struggling to make ends meet while facing physical or mental health issues, disability, or age-related problems. 

Music Industry Therapists: MITC’s specialist music industry psychotherapists, counsellors, psychoanalysts and psychologists have lived experience of the music industry’s unique demands.

Music Minds Matter (UK): Operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week, Music Minds Matter is a support line and service for the music community in the UK. The charity has provided help, support, and opportunities to empower musicians at all stages of their lives. Their mission is to create a sustainable future for all musicians and the industry and works in partnership to transform the music industry through advocacy, campaigning, programs, and targeted investment for all those within it.

Music Support (UK): Music Support is a registered charity that helps peers who work in the UK music industry experiencing substance use, addiction and/or mental health challenges. We promote early intervention through Support Services, Education and Workshops. You are not alone.

For even more resources, here’s a list of 35 national and city-based organizations that offer help for musicians and mental health.