ACT for Musicians: A Guide for Using Acceptance and Commitment Training to Enhance Performance, Overcome Performance Anxiety, and Improve Well-Being

I found it super useful as someone both struggling with musicians performance anxiety, general anxiety and as a music instructor myself found it helpful in my own teaching. Despite the content being awesome and the book being near perfect, there are two pages where they use the word "Your" instead of "You" and that is why I rate it a 4 out of 5. For a book that is filled with so much information and about a serious topic, such silly mistakes can be distracting and pull from the immersive reading experience.

I remember taking piano lessons as a kid. My teacher would place my hands, show me the notes, and make me play the song over and over until it fit the standard she had set. Not once did she ask what I thought, felt, about my worries about pleasing her or if I even liked the material. There was a missing piece that I could have never have defined as a child - me. The lesson was devoid of the psychology of both my life as a piano student and a relationship that was productive between myself and my teacher.The authors of this readable, thorough and educational book have created a seminal work for musicians, music teachers and therapists to approach the psychology of success and contentment as a musician. They seamlessly managed to include enough information about their psychology technique (ACT) to allow for a wide audience to benefit. This book fills in the gaps for younger musicians who avidly read memoirs of famous musicians to get their secrets of success. The book includes exercises, theory, interviews and easy steps to conquer fear, self-doubt and to unpack those pesky stories of failure many musicians rely on to keep themselves stuck.This mindfulness and values based approach is aimed also at teachers and clinicians to be able to tease out the emotional obstacles in a clear way and help their students/clients set a values based approach to their work as musicians and to believe in themselves. I especially loved the parts about how perfectionism and procrastination intertwine and create huge obstacles for people trying to practice, do their work and see themselves as people worthy of respect.If you are in the music world, or want a peek inside the possibility of success in a career or if you work with musicians of any age, this book is a must read. It is a delightful approach to making music be a career worth pursuing. It is a strong testament to mindfulness based work and to using your own patterns and beliefs to change so that you are a capable agent in your own life. Highly recommend!