We all know it’s very important to stay inspired– truly inspired — and excited about your acting career. But I also know it can be tough in this challenging business. So I wanted to share this quote from Helen Keller on Ambition:
“One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.”
It made me think of how often I see actors who get a few too many rejections and it gets them down – it knocks the wind out out of their sails. The excitement… and that impulse to soar in their career.….slows down to a “creep” after a while.
If you’ve dealt with this (as most actors have), then this reminder is especially for you. First… I understand it. I get it. I’ve felt it myself in some areas of my life. One of those times was right before I was going to write my dissertation for my Ph.D.I had completed my three years of classes. And then I had a huge falling out with a professor — it was bad — I was frozen for a year. It was rough.
Then after a year of suffering and feeling bad, I sought some words of wisdom from another advisor at my school — she lit a major fire under me
and I got back on track.
I had wasted a year, yes. I wish I hadn’t. But what could I do. I started taking action then … and 15 months later, I had a dissertation that I was
proud of that helped my put those three little letters behind my name.….Ph.D.My point is that discouragement is a normal feeling. It’s fine if it slows you down a bit.
The problem is, if you give into it for very long and “consent to creep,” it ensures that you will not soar.The film industry is very challenging, as we all know. It’s normal to get discouraged at times. Especially when so many others with far less talent than you are working all the time.
While it’s normal to feel that way once in a while, your real power comes when you do not allow yourself to stay in that mental space.
Don’t let IT win.
How do you Not Let It Win? You take action. And more action. You let go of the conversation in your head about how this or that is not fair. Give up your self-doubt and self-pitty. Maybe it’s true that something’s not fair. But it still IS that way.
Look at what actions you know you need to do.
And start doing them.
Don’t let a single day go by where you are not doing something productive for your career. You know a lot of what you really need to do. And if you don’t, you know places you can go to find out what you need to do — Smart Girls being one of those places. Just Do It – as Nike says.
I hope that this gives you some ideas on moving forward. And maybe moves you into a higher gear on your career if you’re not where you want to be.
And of course, if there’s something that we can do to help, such as doing a Cover Letter Mailing to get an agent or manager, or a branding session, or whatever, then please let me know.
And by the way, here’s the new Actor’s Directory page to our services.