Happy to share this oldie but goodie I wrote for our Accelerated Artist blog:
Ever feel like one day you’re on top of your game in this biz and the next you’re not? That can feel so disempowering and chaotic. What you thought isn’t so… or is it?
Control. This word can mean a lot. Actors either want to control their careers or they feel completely out of control.
Some actors feel they aren’t in control at all, especially when casting directors are looked at as gate-keepers and agents as the answer. They give their own power away as they look at everyone else as an authority and forget to look at themselves.
For other actors, control means always trying to fit a mold and giving people what they think they want. They lose themselves in the process and seem to work REALLY hard. They’re forcing things to happen and shutting people out in the process.
In sports they say great players let the game come to them. Mistakes happen when athletes try to force a shot or a throw. The same holds true for actors.I see actors consistently self-sabotaging themselves as they try to make their career happen or listen to everyone else’s ideas about their career.
So how can you feel in control of your career, but not be controlled by your career?
This question plagued me especially while I was transitioning between coasts. Before I moved to Los Angeles in 2013, I had hit a wall in my career in NYC. I felt out of control but totally controlled by the biz. I had been in NYC for a while and I realized musical theater was no longer the path for me, but that was how the industry saw me, so I kept doing it. I knew my look wasn’t getting me in the door for the types of roles I wanted to play, but I was too scared to change it. I felt like I was on a hamster wheel of complacency and I had to get off but wasn’t sure how. I felt out of control but somehow controlled by the biz.
Through that time, I did a LOT of soul searching of what I really wanted. (Check out Accelerated Coach Chris McGahan’s article on that HERE.) And I reignited in myself one thing I always teach – how can you play the game but by your own rules?
I began to feel more in control AND free by following these steps:
1. Owning who you are and what is uniquely you and presenting that unapologetically to the world.
2. Believing and knowing that you are enough.
3. Accepting it’s never going to be ‘perfect’. You just have to jump.
4. Knowing your core values.
5. Letting go of the result.
Here’s the thing, ultimately, there is no control. All you can do is put yourself in a position to be ready when the opportunities present themselves. To have done the market research and all the goal work to get where you want to go and to know what is special about you in this business – then let it go. And trust.
I promise you, the result will be better than what you ever envisioned or was trying to control in the first place.
– See more at: http://acceleratedartist.com/how-can-you-feel-in-control-but-not-controlled-by-your-career
