7 Bad Habits Hurting Your Music Career

Growing your music career might sometimes feel like you’re battling against the tide.

You see everyone else achieving massive milestones, seemingly every day. But you’re struggling to get close to your goals.

The thing to remember is this: sustainable, long-term growth isn’t really about the big milestones.

It’s about the little things you do daily that compound over time.

And just like success is the culmination of good habits over time, failure is the culmination of bad habits over time.

We’ve surveyed the masses and put together a list of 7 of the most common bad habits that could be hurting your growth as a musician – if you’re nodding along with these, it’s time to make some changes!

Bad Habit #1: Making music solely for the money 👎

We get it: money is important. Particularly if making music is your sole income (or you want it to be some day).

But making music is about creativity. And when you put financial pressure on your creative process, the results will almost always be disappointing.

Earning a living from music alone isn’t easy. Some artists see the success of the biggest musicians and think, ‘I can do that’ – but then find out it’s not as easy as it looks.

In 2024, only 2.6 million tracks achieved over 100,000 streams on Spotify. More than 50% of all tracks released in 2024 achieved 1-10 streams on Spotify. Only 33 tracks received more than 1 billion streams on Spotify in 2024.

Those statistics show that breaking through the noise and achieving the level of success you might be dreaming of isn’t easy. And it certainly doesn’t happen overnight.

It is possible – and we believe a full-time income from music is more than achievable for independent artists. But if you’re making music solely for the money and putting pressure on yourself to achieve overnight success, your creativity will suffer!

Bad Habit #2: Paying for streams of your music 👎

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: paying for streams is not okay!

Services that offer 1,000 streams for $0.99 might look appealing, especially if your streaming stats aren’t where you want them to be. They say they’re legitimate, partnered with Spotify, and everything seems to be above board – what could go wrong?

The problem is that paying for streams is never legitimate, never approved by Spotify (or any other streaming platform, for that matter), and never above board.

Spotify (and every other platform) will know that you’ve used a streaming service to boost your stats.

The best outcome is that those streams earn you no revenue, so you’ve wasted however much you paid to the ‘legit’ service that hoodwinked you.

But that’s the best outcome.

Spotify and other streaming services have the ability to impose fines on you, takedown tracks that are receiving artificial streams, ban you from the platform, and even prosecute you for criminal activity.

So when we say that paying for streams isn’t worth it – we really mean it.

You can find out more about artificial streaming, the pitfalls to avoid, and the consequences in our guide here.

Bad Habit #3: Being quiet on social media 👎

In 2025 (and beyond), trying to build a career as a musician is tricky without harnessing the power of social media.

It’s not impossible, of course – but social media should at least be a part of your music marketing strategy.

(Side note: we’ve spoken before about building a career without relying entirely on social media – and concluded that, while it’s definitely possible to skip social entirely, the best music promotion strategy is to make the most of both owned and rented channels simultaneously! You can find out more here.)

Being active on social media can feel like a full-time job itself so it’s understandable if it takes a backseat to making music in your list of priorities. But not using social media at all (especially if you’ve already built up an audience that’s eager to hear from you) is harming your growth.

Particularly in the run-up to release day, make a concerted effort to show up for your fans, re-engage them with your music, and get them hyped for your new music.

Bad Habit #4: Blaming the music industry for your struggles 👎

We get it: the music industry is far from perfect.

Making positive changes to the music industry for independent artists and record labels is one of our biggest driving motivators, because we’ve seen just how difficult it can be out there.

But one of the worst (and most common) bad habits we see in artists is blaming the music industry for their own shortfalls.

Yes, things could be much better. Yes, you’re battling against major labels, diminishing attention spans, and wearing a hundred hats at once. Yes, being an independent artist can feel like a struggle.

But blaming the state of the music industry isn’t going to achieve anything.

Instead of focusing on everything around you and how unfair it feels, the successful artists block that out and focus on their own journey.

If you can look yourself in the eyes and honestly say that you’re doing everything in your power to make your music career a success, you can sleep soundly at night.

But if you’re wasting time and energy comparing yourself to others and putting the blame on everything and everyone but you – it might be time to give yourself some tough love…

Bad Habit #5: Not sharing your music until release day 👎

Waiting until release day to suddenly spring your new music on your fans means you’re missing out on building hype and excitement for your drop.

We’re not saying you should share the entire release before release day, but sharing snippets of your music, your BTS process, or even just setting up an Instagram countdown timer to let people know something’s coming soon will help to make your release day as impactful as possible.

If you’d rather not leak any parts of your release before release day, that’s fine – you can share photos or videos of the process of making your music or cryptic ‘coming soon’ posts to pique the interest of your fans before release day.

Bad Habit #6: Not engaging with your fans 👎

Ever heard of ‘posting and ghosting’? It’s when someone shares something on social media, then disappears from the face of the planet. No replies to comments, no replies to DMs, no activity at all…

That’s exactly what you shouldn’t be doing.

Your music marketing shouldn’t feel like you’re standing on a mountaintop with a megaphone, shouting into the silence. It should feel like a conversation with your fans, where you share something, they respond, and you respond back.

Your fans are your number one asset when it comes to building your music career – treating them like human beings and keeping them fully engaged with your music will keep them coming back for more as you grow your career.

Bad Habit #7: Not selling music merch 👎

You don’t want to earn more from your music? Cool, don’t sell merch.

If you do fancy earning some extra revenue from your music career, selling merch is one of the easiest ways to do so.

There are tools, like Printful and Printify, that make the process of designing and making merch really simple – upload your designs, see your designs on hundreds of different products, then connect your merch to your online store to sell via print-on-demand, meaning no need to invest loads of money upfront, keep items physically in stock, or manage the packing and shipping process yourself.

With such little upfront money and time investment needed to get started and the potential to earn even more revenue from your music, selling merch to your fans is a no-brainer.

You can find out more about how to get started with selling merch here.