It's the most wonderful time of the year! Many of us will take the time to catch up with friends and family members.
Others will spend quiet evenings at home. However, something all of us will do at some point throughout the season is: reflect.
As the year comes to a close and we spend time reflecting on the things we accomplished this year, and think of why we didn’t accomplish others, this factor is very easy to miss.
So, today I want to give you something to think about and give you a number of ways that you can give your career a headstart on 2020, by breaking down what the industry’s top performers do to make it to the top of the industry.
Let’s start with the hard part...
As an actor, when you start to make some big career moves and outshine your peers, your world changes dramatically.
Your success is met with envy from some and others will question what you did to achieve a level of success that has evaded them.
Your true supporters will of course be happy for you...to a point. There is always a point at which your success makes them question their lack of success. It sounds harsh, but the truth typically is a bit harsh.
As you gather with friends and family this time of year, the typical questions come up and you will usually respond with the big auditions you have lined up or that you are hoping to be able to read for mainline projects.
If you have been striving to be a professional actor for any length of time, you know that almost everyone had serious doubts about your ability to make things happen when you started down the path of becoming a professional actor.
And every year, they are expecting you to say that you are finally throwing in the towel and will be hanging it up for good.
With so many actors leaving the industry every year, without having accomplished 1/10th of what they initially set out to accomplish, chances are, they would eventually be right.
That’s why it’s so important that you learn how to give yourself the best chance of success, and following in the footsteps of the actors that have built successful careers is just the way to do it.
In a few days, we’ll be welcoming a new year and a new decade. This time next year, when we’re staring down the barrel at 2021, I want you and your career to be on an entirely new level, that exceeds what you have even imagined.
Throughout the years, I have learned that top performing actors have a specific way of planning their progress.
They set goals just like most of us do...or at least try to do. But, what sets them apart is the way they approach their goals.
It’s something you can do too, starting right now. As you sit down and start to plan your career for the next year, you should be setting goals for how you want your career to progress.
Those goals should be achievable and realistic, but they should also push you and make you stretch out of your comfort zone.
I want to be clear on something the word “realistic” has a different meaning for everybody, depending on their career stage.
There is no hard and fast rule on this, just be sure that you are setting goals that are congruent with the way you operate and what you are willing to do to get ahead.
For example, if you are not willing to seek out and network with industry decision makers, don’t set a goal that involves meeting with a number of them. That would make it an unrealistic goal for you to achieve.
They should also push you to the limits of your comfort zone, stamina, etc. Think of it kind of like setting fitness goals. If you can comfortably run 3 miles, you would push yourself to comfortably run 3.5 miles, then 4 miles, 4.5 miles and so on.
Your industry goals should be the same. If you are already going on an audition every week, push yourself to do what it takes to make that 2 auditions per week, then 3 and so on.
What sets top performers apart from the rest of the industry is that they take the time to set goals properly, then they reverse engineer how they will accomplish those goals.
They plan for the big picture stuff and then plan the steps to get there, breaking it down to what they must do every month, every week, and everyday.
It’s called tactical thinking, and it’s actually what most “normal people” are really good at. Actors are different. We are creatives.
We are really good at imagining the big picture, but planning the tactical steps to accomplish it is difficult for most actors.
This is where you would want to enlist the help of an agent or a manager. They are naturally more left-brain dominant, so this part should come much easier to them.
Here’s another area where top performing actors differ from everyone else: they get help with the areas they are not experts in.
When it comes to planning out the tactics of PR, branding yourself, planning for project synergies, networking, etc., top performing actors leverage their strengths and don’t waste time working on their weaknesses.
They unload those responsibilities all together.
If you’re not in the practice of doing that, then the best time to start is now.
That’s why I created this for you.
Remember Boost My Star was created specifically for actors. Because the industry is a small circle, on the grand scheme, we don’t have the tools available to other kinds of professionals.
This means we are often left to our own devices to modify things and make them work for us.
When it comes to something as important as making a reputation for yourself in the industry, you don’t want to take any chances.
There are some things you can figure out along the way in the industry. There are other things that you have to learn from someone else, or even just let someone else handle it for you.
This is important enough to be one of those things that you let someone else handle.
Because casting directors and other industry decision makers pay such close attention to this and use it when deciding whether or not to give you a call back, you want to make sure you are putting forth a consistent effort to always have your best foot forward.
If 2019 didn’t meet your expectations, there are a few ways you can identify what they problem was.
Chances are, this was at least a factor. We’ll get into it further next week.
For now, what I want you to do is set some quiet time aside to set your goals and plan your career for the next year.
Then, give this a good amount of thought.
If you didn’t do it in 2019, then this could be what you need to change in 2020.
One thing the industry elite never do is wait. So, you shouldn’t either. Don’t wait until this time next year to make a change. Start today because my wish for 2020 is to...
See you at the top,
Scott