I am a pretty big baseball fan.  I’m not one of those people that doesn’t miss a game, but I am one of those people that catches 3 or 4 games a week.  Baseball has walk up music.  It’s played when each player “walks up” to the plate and gets ready for their at-bat.   

I have walk up music for work.

I don’t know how normal that is.  I have a rotation of music that I play for the day, depending upon my expectations for that day, during my 2 block walk from the parking garage to the office. 

A few years ago, as I was working myself through imposter syndrome, I read a book called The Gifted Adult: A Revolutionary Guide for Liberating Everyday Genius. The book has a quiz that helps you identify areas of aptitude and for me, music was identified as one of them.  After taking that nugget under advisement, I started using music as a coping mechanism and a mood hack.  So now I play psych up music just like athletes do.

I do have a thing for dance music and some language is part of the package.  I’ll leave anything out here but listen at your own risk!  This isn’t a complete list by any means, these are just my favorites.

For a day requiring inspiration:

Dream Bigger – Axwell Ingrosso – “Dream big, dream, oh, f**k it, dream bigger…He told me, never compare to somebody else, the only person you should compete is with yourself, that means your today should totally be better than your yesterday’s you, if you believe.”

Song of choice for days where I am reaching.  Reaching for something bigger than myself, like talking the whole company about something moving forward.  Also great for talking myself into handling something I’m nervous about. I like the bit about not comparing yourself to others.  For an EDM song, it’s pretty positive. Good pump up song.

For a day when you worry you’re over your head:

Right Hand Man – Hamilton Soundtrack – This show is incredibly popular; although this song actually is sung by, and mostly about, George Washington.  The gist of it is that he’s singing this song before getting Hamilton as an assistant and it’s during a rough patch in the war.

“Check it— Can I be real a second? For just a millisecond? Let down my guard and tell the people how I feel a second? Now I’m the model of a modern major general the venerated Virginian veteran whose men are all lining up, to put me up on a pedestal writin’ letters to relatives embellishin’ my elegance and eloquence but the elephant is in the room the truth is in ya face when ya hear the British cannons go…Boom!….” ”Dying is easy young man, living is harder”

This is a great song for days when I feel like I’m over my head.  George felt that way too and he found his way out.  He is one of my favorite figures in history and also in the show, and this is his best song. 

Music to put nose to the grindstone by:

Work B**ch – Britney Spears – Doubles as a great workout song.  The lyrics are pretty much a list of things that people want that they aren’t going to get without working hard.  Which is kinda surprising coming from Brittany Spears in a dance song, but there you are.

“You want a hot body? You want a Bugatti? You want a Maserati? You better work b**ch”

It’s fantastic for putting your head down and cranking on something.  Proposal writing is a good one (in my case).  This is a great song for when I need a little bit of a push. 

For a day with a confrontation scheduled:

Stronger – Kanye West –  “N-now th-that that don’t kill me can only make me stronger” – This one is a little less deep.  This one has a great bass line and is fantastic for playing loud.  Song is great for days I’m dreading, the refrain are really the only words that resonate, but still worth listening to on those days. Usually it’s a difficult conversation I have to have with someone on the team.

After a lousy day:

Take Me Home – Cash Cash – “I’m falling to pieces but I need this yeah, I need this, you’re my fault my weakness…But I still stay cause you’re the only thing I know, so won’t you take, oh, won’t you take me home.” 

Seeing this typed it really doesn’t have the same impact,  highly recommend listening to this one.  This one is really about the conflict between how much I love work and how much it can stress me out, a problem which I don’t think is unique to me by any means. There is no doubt that I need the mental stimulation that comes with doing what I do and how gratifying it can be.  The down side of being as invested and caring as much as a I do is that it can be really hard to separate and it can certainly be stressful. 

Again, sounds great loud, but gets at the double edged sword of it all.

Not sure if this hack works for me in a way similar to the way Power Poses  do but it’s worth a shot for you too!