"To make big steps, you've got to take action yourself and not listen to other people"
About this Quote
Big steps rarely happen by consensus. Juliana Hatfield distills a core indie-rock ethic: progress is born of self-propelled action and a stubborn filter against other peoples noise. The imperative is not just to move, but to move from your own center, even when the chorus of opinions urges caution, conformity, or a different path entirely.
Hatfields career gives the line extra texture. Coming up in the late-80s and 90s alternative scene with Blake Babies and The Juliana Hatfield Three, she navigated a male-dominated industry, flirted with major-label machinery, then repeatedly returned to independent routes. That pattern of stepping off well-trodden tracks, releasing idiosyncratic records, and steering her own projects embodies the refusal to outsource direction. In creative work, waiting for permission produces safe, incremental changes; acting from conviction makes room for leaps that redefine identity and trajectory.
There is a psychological claim here about locus of control. When you locate agency inside yourself, you accept the risk of being wrong in exchange for the chance to be original. Action becomes the teacher, trimming speculation to what experience can confirm. Opinions from the outside world might be helpful, but they are often projections of other peoples fears, incentives, or brand of caution. To listen indiscriminately is to inherit their limits.
None of this glorifies stubbornness for its own sake. It is about priority. Take counsel, then decide. If the step is truly big, the noise will be loud, and the data will be scarce. The only reliable compass is the one you calibrate through doing. Start the band. Leave the label. Write the record nobody asked for. The world tends to organize itself around momentum, not around ideas about momentum. By acting first and filtering the rest, you turn possibility into a path and become accountable to the future you actually want.
Hatfields career gives the line extra texture. Coming up in the late-80s and 90s alternative scene with Blake Babies and The Juliana Hatfield Three, she navigated a male-dominated industry, flirted with major-label machinery, then repeatedly returned to independent routes. That pattern of stepping off well-trodden tracks, releasing idiosyncratic records, and steering her own projects embodies the refusal to outsource direction. In creative work, waiting for permission produces safe, incremental changes; acting from conviction makes room for leaps that redefine identity and trajectory.
There is a psychological claim here about locus of control. When you locate agency inside yourself, you accept the risk of being wrong in exchange for the chance to be original. Action becomes the teacher, trimming speculation to what experience can confirm. Opinions from the outside world might be helpful, but they are often projections of other peoples fears, incentives, or brand of caution. To listen indiscriminately is to inherit their limits.
None of this glorifies stubbornness for its own sake. It is about priority. Take counsel, then decide. If the step is truly big, the noise will be loud, and the data will be scarce. The only reliable compass is the one you calibrate through doing. Start the band. Leave the label. Write the record nobody asked for. The world tends to organize itself around momentum, not around ideas about momentum. By acting first and filtering the rest, you turn possibility into a path and become accountable to the future you actually want.
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| Topic | Motivational |
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