Habit

It’s possible that many of your beliefs or associations about acting are similar to beliefs or associations you have in other areas of your life. These are areas which appear to have nothing to do with acting. They are things you do on a regular basis without thinking. These are habits. A habit is a learned pattern of behavior. You may have acquired habits that don’t support your desires or expectations to be an actor. There are good habits and there are bad habits. They both work the same way. If you do something a certain way, for a certain period of time, it becomes comfortable.

The process of habit may appear pretty much the same as the process of talent. The process for talent is knowledge to repetition until it becomes physically comfortable as it becomes muscle memory. It becomes physically comfortable when it can be done without thinking. The difference between a habit and a talent is the focus of the end result. Your talents have been designed and developed with purpose. A habit, on the other hand, just happen without thought of consequence.

A habit is not the result of discipline. And, as we know, discipline (use of time) is the fundamental need to create a talent. As for habit, the body works toward pleasure if left to its own devices. If it feels good then the repetition becomes easy and the result becomes self-gratifying, if not self-enhancing. The use of pain and pleasure guide your physical life. However, to achieve a talent you must make a choice to accept the discomfort the body will imagine is being experienced through discipline. With controlled actions you are moving away from habit and moving toward a goal that will support your professional desires.

Don't forget, the body on its quest for pleasure, left to its own control, will override logic, intelligence and common sense to repeat the feeling of a pleasure. This often results in the non-supportive habit.

You know when you are doing something that supports your career and your life. You also know when you are not.

What is it that allows you to accept these non-supportive actions (these habits) without working to disempower them? The answer to this question is simple. The application of that answer is not. It is, none the less, about choice. It’s about taking control of your comfort zones of habit and redesigning your objectives toward talents.

Getting the Job

Less than 2% of actors work enough to get insurance through their unions. There are many working actors and there are plenty of good jobs for them. There are many opportunities for the actor if you have positioned yourself in the right place with the right clarity of your product. In this business many actors have proven that they can do the job. Many have also proven that they have a fear of getting the job. There are also many actors in the storytelling process who may not have as many talents as others, but they have no fear of getting the job. Therefore, they work.

You can develop the talent for getting the job by eliminating the fear of getting the job. This is done with knowledge. There are some basic things you need to know to enhance your efforts at being more competitive. First, you need to know that you have every right to pursue a given acting job if you are not clear that your talents are up to the task. Secondly, regardless of the outcome of the audition, you must accept that you can’t fail because a ‘yes or no’ result is still fulfilling your responsibility to the odds, and the path by which talents are achieved.

Each person you meet may be instrumental in your quest for a successful professional acting career. Therefore, you must create the circumstance to meet as many as possible. Treat them with the appreciation and enthusiasm that you may well need to give them in the future. Use your energy in its performance mode. It’s a game, and the rules change based on the circumstance and the genre.

There are general rules that are consistent. The decision making person, the one in control of whether or not you get the job, is not your friend, not your buddy, not your equal, nor are they your enemy. This person is evaluating your type, your style, your believability, your adaptability to format, your ability to take direction, your emotional balance and the power of your personal energy. They evaluate this by how your audition affects their being. The more auditions you have the better you will get at demonstrating those abilities. Every audition allows repetition of your current knowledge. It also provides an opportunity for additional knowledge to be placed into repetition.

In your quest to achieve a talent and remove the fear of getting the job, the number of auditions will far outweigh the value of the project during your developmental stages. Until you are completely clear about the talents needed for major professional acting jobs, you are free to pursue as many acting auditions as possible, regardless of production level. It doesn't matter how small, how unprofessional or how tasteless the project. It’s not about taking the job; it’s about being offered the job. You must have the confidence to believe that you have the talents needed to support the job description for the auditon.

The best way to achieve the talents needed to get the auditions and to win the jobs is by increasing your knowledge of the tools needed and putting that knowledge into muscle memory by repetition. You do this with more auditons. Therefore, go to as many auditons as you can, regardless of the quality or potential of the project. At this stage its quantity, not quality that is your objective. You want to create the circumstances where you can be seen and evaluated leading to offers of opportunity.

Have a wonderful week.

I wish you well,
Russ