Faith Numada

My name is Faith Numada, I am a Country artist from Vancouver, BC, Canada and I struggle with insecurity. In fact, I gave up on music for two years because I believed I was not good enough.

This past year, I learned 5 valuable lessons that gave me my confidence back. I hope sharing them with you will help you along your journey.

Lesson One:  Your Art is About Giving and not Receiving

I once sang at a coffee shop and, afterwards, a woman came up to me in tears saying, “I needed to hear that song.  You were singing directly to me; how did you know I needed to hear that?”

Truth is, during the performance, I was thinking about myself: Was I singing on key? Did I play the chords right? Does this ukulele make me look fat?

That night, I realized that my performance was not about me looking good or sounding good, but rather about giving the audience the gift of a song and letting it mean whatever it means to them. Art is a gift meant for the world, and it is also very subjective. It can touch hearts in ways you never imagined.

Lesson Two:  Don’t Hold Your Gift Hostage

I recorded my debut EP two years ago but refused to release it because I was afraid that people wouldn’t like it. So I held it hostage instead.

One night, I was quite upset and couldn’t sleep, so I stayed up watching several episodes of Gossip Girl (which really didn’t improve the situation). Around 4:30 am, I noticed my friend Lance Lapointe had emailed me a recording of his new song Alive. I listened to it and broke down in a healthy release of tears. That song gave me the comfort I needed.

I’m grateful Lance didn’t hold his gift hostage. Thinking upon that night made me realize that I need to stop being afraid of what people think and just put my music out there for that one person who might need to hear it. I’ve since released my EP, and I am no longer in a hostage situation.

Lesson Three:  Failures are for Learning

A few years ago, I sent some of my songs to a well-known country music producer in the hopes that he would love my songs and want to record me.  He listened to my songs and wrote back telling me that my songs weren’t country enough for a country album.

My pride wounded, I took his email very personally. I proceeded to throw myself a pity party and after my ‘woe is me’ hangover subsided, I re-read his email, listened to my songs again, and realized that he was right. He hadn’t meant to hurt my feelings, and he actually gave me very good advice that led me to take a whole year to work on my songwriting. What I thought was a failure was really a learning opportunity that led to me write a really solid country tune.

Crazy coincidence: I ran into him last week and he told that me he was happy with how far I’d come. If we can see our failures as learning opportunities, they are no longer failures and have become the next stepping stone towards success.

Lesson Four:  Trash the Negativity

My mind can sometimes be a garbage dump of negative thoughts: You’re not good enough. Your voice sucks. No one will buy your EP. You’re too short to be a stormtrooper.

One day, I decided to write a list of all my negative thoughts. This forced me to see how much time I wasted on thinking them.  Then, I ripped the list into tiny shreds of paper and flushed them down the toilet.

I’ve heard of another version of this exercise, where people write down a list of negative thoughts and burn it. I chose not to do this method because I am a klutz and once lit my hair on fire during a romantic candle-light dinner, so please keep matches far away from me.

Eventually, I learned not to waste my time (or paper) on thinking negatively. As my friend Michael once put it, “Your brain is valuable real estate. Don’t waste it on thoughts that don’t deserve it.”

Lesson Five:  Speak Words of Affirmation to Yourself

I first learned this lesson when dealing with my self-image struggles and low self-esteem. I realized that I didn’t receive a lot of words of affirmation from others, so I decided to start giving them to myself. I’d look in a mirror and say: Faith, you are beautiful. I felt like a total dweeb doing it, but eventually I started to believe I was beautiful on the outside. But more importantly, eventually I started feeling beautiful on the inside.

I started to apply words of affirmation to my music as well.  When I start feeling insecure, I tell myself: Faith, you are good enough. Your songs are a gift. People enjoy listening to the music.

Eventually my mind-set shifted so that I no longer constantly sought approval of my music to appease my insecurities.  Instead, music became a thing of beauty and my focus became sharing it with others out of love.

Faith Numada
http://www.faithnumada.com/
@faithnumada
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Faith Numada is an independent country artist, songwriter, and producer from Vancouver, BC, Canada. She released her debut EP February 2014. She is an active part of the Vancouver music scene, performing for local festivals and television. She is best known for her songs Why Give It Away and Junk In Your Trunk. 

Click on the cover art to buy Faith Numada’s EP with both hit songs:

Her influences include Patsy Cline, Martina McBride, Shania Twain, and Johnny Cash.

Faith currently resides with her two guitars, mandolin, ukulele, and trumpet. She claims she will not truly settle down until she has a piano.