Sacrifice is giving up something you want in order to achieve something else. For the actor, sacrifice means that he has to take time away from other aspects of his life in order to fill his responsibility to his career. Sacrifice is about time, focus, and use of resources. Sacrifice is about discipline. When you have made it as a successful professional actor the sacrifices will be looked at more kindly because they will be compensated with money and fame.
There are sacrifices you will need to make to advance your career plan. There is the sacrifice of time with your family and significant others and there is the sacrifice of time with friends.
Sacrifice is not about your values or your self worth. Going against your true beliefs and values is not a sacrifice. It is a moral choice of self deception. If you think that you can sacrifice a personal moral value for expediency then you may find that you are wrong.
You may have beliefs that some things should not be sacrificed for your career. You may have the belief that you seriously doubt you can make it. You may have the belief that there never will be a career because acting is not a real job. You may have the belief that you shouldn't take time away from another need in your life in order to pursue a pipe dream. You may have the belief, “what the heck, I can do it tomorrow." These beliefs serve to undermine your desired beliefs. They will, however, spotlight what you truly value.
Your true beliefs are usually developed by religion, social status, race, educational status, or something else that occurred during your early years. If you were to look at your political party affiliation such as Republican, Democrat, Independent, Socialist, Nationalists, Green, etc., you would have a general idea of what your true beliefs are on almost every subject. Your true beliefs may not need to correspond with the true beliefs generally associated with a storyteller, but you need to know what those true beliefs are.
For example, if you pursue a liberal career field and yet your true beliefs are conservative you can see why your true beliefs are probably not going to support your desired value system. Even though your external value system may appear to be open and non judgmental, your true beliefs and values may not. You may find that your true beliefs could be supporting non action in order to avoid some self confrontation.
The Power of Cultural Beliefs
There are sacrifices you will need to make to advance your career plan. There is the sacrifice of time with your family and significant others and there is the sacrifice of time with friends.
Sacrifice is not about your values or your self worth. Going against your true beliefs and values is not a sacrifice. It is a moral choice of self deception. If you think that you can sacrifice a personal moral value for expediency then you may find that you are wrong.
You may have beliefs that some things should not be sacrificed for your career. You may have the belief that you seriously doubt you can make it. You may have the belief that there never will be a career because acting is not a real job. You may have the belief that you shouldn't take time away from another need in your life in order to pursue a pipe dream. You may have the belief, “what the heck, I can do it tomorrow." These beliefs serve to undermine your desired beliefs. They will, however, spotlight what you truly value.
Your true beliefs are usually developed by religion, social status, race, educational status, or something else that occurred during your early years. If you were to look at your political party affiliation such as Republican, Democrat, Independent, Socialist, Nationalists, Green, etc., you would have a general idea of what your true beliefs are on almost every subject. Your true beliefs may not need to correspond with the true beliefs generally associated with a storyteller, but you need to know what those true beliefs are.
For example, if you pursue a liberal career field and yet your true beliefs are conservative you can see why your true beliefs are probably not going to support your desired value system. Even though your external value system may appear to be open and non judgmental, your true beliefs and values may not. You may find that your true beliefs could be supporting non action in order to avoid some self confrontation.
The Power of Cultural Beliefs
What is it that makes it possible for a student of medicine or law to make the time sacrifices of other aspects of their lives in order to secure their medical or law degrees? The educational systems of law and medicine have a reality built in. Everyone expects a law student or medical student to be out of pocket for the four to eight years necessary to qualify for these professions. There are preset true beliefs that law and medical students are special. There are preset true beliefs that becoming a doctor or a lawyer is the greatest career for your children. There are true beliefs supported by true values that law and medical students are the cream of the crop. Because of these culturally defined beliefs no sacrifice of time or money is too great for them or for those who support them.
The medical and law students know these preset beliefs exist and they are fueled by these beliefs. What about you? What preset true beliefs fuel your career efforts? “Acting is a nowhere occupation?” “Acting is an excuse to stay away from the responsibility of working toward a real profession?” “Chances of succeeding as an actor are almost nonexistent.” The list of negative preset true beliefs about the profession of acting is boundless. These preset true beliefs may well be your operating beliefs. Your preset true beliefs may have allowed your focus to be shifted from your external career values to your internal survival values.
You may be sacrificing for the wrong reason. This will happen if your belief system is working on automatic pilot. Your negative preset true beliefs about becoming a successful professional actor may be just useless baggage. These preset beliefs may be stopping you from realizing your career plan. You can change your preset true beliefs by addressing them.
You found your values by becoming aware of your use of time. Now you need to find the true beliefs that may be detouring you from your desired career. If you want to know what your true beliefs are, ask yourself questions about the non actions toward your career. Listen to your justifications or excuses.
Your justifications and excuses are your true beliefs.
You cannot succeed if your values are not supported by beliefs of positive achievement. It is critical that you lead your life in public and in private with the same set of values and beliefs. You do not wish to manipulate the public with one set of values and your private life with another. “You may deceive some of the people some of the time, all of people some of the time but never will you be able to deceive all of the people all of the time.” Always know what you have done is the best you could. Know that your true beliefs support your public declaration that you are an actor. Know that you are doing everything possible to increase your odds of success. Very few aspiring actors can say this. The reason they can’t lies in their counter productive preset true beliefs that sabotage and disheartened them from their desired goals.
Your true beliefs are based on certain truths. These true beliefs are the rules you set for your participation in winning the game of life. If you avoid seeking the knowledge about your true beliefs you are at the mercy of your own fears. It becomes a vicious circle that can undermine the enjoyment of the living experience.
Paradigm Shift
The medical and law students know these preset beliefs exist and they are fueled by these beliefs. What about you? What preset true beliefs fuel your career efforts? “Acting is a nowhere occupation?” “Acting is an excuse to stay away from the responsibility of working toward a real profession?” “Chances of succeeding as an actor are almost nonexistent.” The list of negative preset true beliefs about the profession of acting is boundless. These preset true beliefs may well be your operating beliefs. Your preset true beliefs may have allowed your focus to be shifted from your external career values to your internal survival values.
You may be sacrificing for the wrong reason. This will happen if your belief system is working on automatic pilot. Your negative preset true beliefs about becoming a successful professional actor may be just useless baggage. These preset beliefs may be stopping you from realizing your career plan. You can change your preset true beliefs by addressing them.
You found your values by becoming aware of your use of time. Now you need to find the true beliefs that may be detouring you from your desired career. If you want to know what your true beliefs are, ask yourself questions about the non actions toward your career. Listen to your justifications or excuses.
Your justifications and excuses are your true beliefs.
You cannot succeed if your values are not supported by beliefs of positive achievement. It is critical that you lead your life in public and in private with the same set of values and beliefs. You do not wish to manipulate the public with one set of values and your private life with another. “You may deceive some of the people some of the time, all of people some of the time but never will you be able to deceive all of the people all of the time.” Always know what you have done is the best you could. Know that your true beliefs support your public declaration that you are an actor. Know that you are doing everything possible to increase your odds of success. Very few aspiring actors can say this. The reason they can’t lies in their counter productive preset true beliefs that sabotage and disheartened them from their desired goals.
Your true beliefs are based on certain truths. These true beliefs are the rules you set for your participation in winning the game of life. If you avoid seeking the knowledge about your true beliefs you are at the mercy of your own fears. It becomes a vicious circle that can undermine the enjoyment of the living experience.
Paradigm Shift
A paradigm is a plan; a proven path of success; a model. A plan based on a proven track record. They are not based on beliefs which are subjective in design. They are provable because they get desired results. Whenever you’re making the changes necessary to take control of your life, you need to follow the proven rules of success. Nothing can be more dangerous to your goals than beliefs that are steeped in subjectivity.
It is important that your beliefs are based on facts rather than opinions. The rules of a plan for success start by knowing clearly and specifically what you want from that success. Have an agenda for that knowledge. Identify each implementing action you need to take to get the results you want. Evaluate the results from a particular plan of action for positive results. Change the actions if you are not getting the result you want.
Evaluate your plan of action by modeling those who have achieved the results you are after. Learn from those who are getting what you want. There are industry supported beliefs that allow motivated aspiring actors to throw themselves into a process of promotion that only supports a cottage industry of non working performers. Know what those industry supported beliefs are. Don’t follow patterns and techniques that are out dated. Avoid sending mass mailings of pictures and resumes to agents. Find more interesting approaches in trying to get industry people to come to your showcases.
Most career techniques that worked 20 years ago do not apply to today’s marketing strategies. Anyone who suggests they do is running a business to support themselves at your expense. This is true for many acting classes and university programs as well. The process of teaching must fit the demands of the business as it applies to you. Your uniqueness within this industry is the common denominator to your success. Try to conform and you will lose your individual power to be a successful professional actor.
Making a Living
It is important that your beliefs are based on facts rather than opinions. The rules of a plan for success start by knowing clearly and specifically what you want from that success. Have an agenda for that knowledge. Identify each implementing action you need to take to get the results you want. Evaluate the results from a particular plan of action for positive results. Change the actions if you are not getting the result you want.
Evaluate your plan of action by modeling those who have achieved the results you are after. Learn from those who are getting what you want. There are industry supported beliefs that allow motivated aspiring actors to throw themselves into a process of promotion that only supports a cottage industry of non working performers. Know what those industry supported beliefs are. Don’t follow patterns and techniques that are out dated. Avoid sending mass mailings of pictures and resumes to agents. Find more interesting approaches in trying to get industry people to come to your showcases.
Most career techniques that worked 20 years ago do not apply to today’s marketing strategies. Anyone who suggests they do is running a business to support themselves at your expense. This is true for many acting classes and university programs as well. The process of teaching must fit the demands of the business as it applies to you. Your uniqueness within this industry is the common denominator to your success. Try to conform and you will lose your individual power to be a successful professional actor.
Making a Living
The first concern for the actor is how to make a living in this business of storytelling. Do what actors have done for hundreds of years. Make your own work. Become your own producer. De-program yourself from the belief that the collaborative process includes non artistic people. The career opportunities for the actor have been taken away by middlemen. These middlemen can come in many guises but their effect is still the same. They do things that you should be able to do for yourself. Create your own storytelling opportunities. Practice your instrument by doing showcases and co-oped scene classes. Explore efforts to clarify your product/package and your ability to create exciting and believable characters. Find efforts to practice creating these character with your uniqueness included. You’ll always be able to work if you are clever, dedicated, and disciplined enough to create your own jobs.
Generate the kind of financial rewards that come from controlling your own destiny. Search out the jobs that will give you insight into your professional skills and talents. And remember, your true beliefs are what decide whether you are pursuing your career or not.
The pursuit of an acting career should add to your quality of life, not detract from it. Any sacrifices you make should be sacrifices of love and participation. As stated, your perception of your circumstance is controlled by your true beliefs. “I never win anyway. No one would hire me; why bother to go to the audition. I should get new head shots but why spend the money.” These thoughts are supported by beliefs that must be changed.
Incentive to Change
Generate the kind of financial rewards that come from controlling your own destiny. Search out the jobs that will give you insight into your professional skills and talents. And remember, your true beliefs are what decide whether you are pursuing your career or not.
The pursuit of an acting career should add to your quality of life, not detract from it. Any sacrifices you make should be sacrifices of love and participation. As stated, your perception of your circumstance is controlled by your true beliefs. “I never win anyway. No one would hire me; why bother to go to the audition. I should get new head shots but why spend the money.” These thoughts are supported by beliefs that must be changed.
Incentive to Change
Enhancing the power towards your personal goals can happen if you demand more from yourself. The process of taking action begins with this personal knowledge. This change cannot happen without finding the incentives to make the change.
If something makes you burst into a display of bad behavior you are responsible for that bad behavior. It is not what causes the bad behavior that needs to be addressed. It is what causes you to go to bad behavior and the beliefs that led you to that behavioral pattern that must be changed. It is the knowledge that you are working at a frequency that will attract the same. No matter how down you feel for holding negative true beliefs it doesn’t matter. What matters is what you do about those beliefs now.
Where is your focus going in order to avoid your career responsibility? Are you taking drugs? Are you drinking more than you should? Are you watching television endlessly? Are you getting lost looking for sex? Are you eating to fill the time and getting more out of shape so you can have yet another limiting belief?
Give yourself permission to change. Create your own incentive by knowing that you have the power to change the energy frequency that you are radiating. You can shift to a higher frequency and therefore inspire yourself to change.
Reflecting Your Personal Beliefs
If something makes you burst into a display of bad behavior you are responsible for that bad behavior. It is not what causes the bad behavior that needs to be addressed. It is what causes you to go to bad behavior and the beliefs that led you to that behavioral pattern that must be changed. It is the knowledge that you are working at a frequency that will attract the same. No matter how down you feel for holding negative true beliefs it doesn’t matter. What matters is what you do about those beliefs now.
Where is your focus going in order to avoid your career responsibility? Are you taking drugs? Are you drinking more than you should? Are you watching television endlessly? Are you getting lost looking for sex? Are you eating to fill the time and getting more out of shape so you can have yet another limiting belief?
Give yourself permission to change. Create your own incentive by knowing that you have the power to change the energy frequency that you are radiating. You can shift to a higher frequency and therefore inspire yourself to change.
Reflecting Your Personal Beliefs
You know that the philosophical, metaphysical and spiritual justifications for material wealth as the gauge of personal success boil down to hogwash. If others decide how you value yourself, it is because that is what you believe. If your beliefs are not what you want they can be changed by you in the now. Know what you want specifically, and create an activity necessary to implement a goal. This can be done over time, using discipline, consistency and competition.
Evaluate the progress and results of your actions for specific outcome and change the actions if the results you want are not forthcoming. You are capable of making this happen. It is not only about your willingness to do the work. It’s also about believing that you deserve the work. It is about believing that you have a right to be a successful professional actor. Believe you have the right to be an accomplished storyteller. Believe it is your right to be a physical healer with the control of your energy. Believe it is your right to be a member of a career field as old as civilization.
The ability to believe is connected to the glorious gift of imagination. To believe is to have access to life’s ultimate bounty. Acting is a career where ultimate power brings with it many obstacles. The greatest of these obstacles is you. If you make the choice you can change anything that is getting in the way of your desired beliefs. Recognize what those obstacles are to you. Evaluate their effect on you and then remove them from your life.
Take some time and evaluate what you are doing with your time. Find those activities that are keeping you from your purported goals. It is in those activities that you will find your true beliefs. If those true beliefs do not support your expectations then take away their power by changing the activities.
As always I wish you well,
Russ
Evaluate the progress and results of your actions for specific outcome and change the actions if the results you want are not forthcoming. You are capable of making this happen. It is not only about your willingness to do the work. It’s also about believing that you deserve the work. It is about believing that you have a right to be a successful professional actor. Believe you have the right to be an accomplished storyteller. Believe it is your right to be a physical healer with the control of your energy. Believe it is your right to be a member of a career field as old as civilization.
The ability to believe is connected to the glorious gift of imagination. To believe is to have access to life’s ultimate bounty. Acting is a career where ultimate power brings with it many obstacles. The greatest of these obstacles is you. If you make the choice you can change anything that is getting in the way of your desired beliefs. Recognize what those obstacles are to you. Evaluate their effect on you and then remove them from your life.
Take some time and evaluate what you are doing with your time. Find those activities that are keeping you from your purported goals. It is in those activities that you will find your true beliefs. If those true beliefs do not support your expectations then take away their power by changing the activities.
As always I wish you well,
Russ
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