Does Your Process Make You Stronger? | The Great Acting Blog

 

Perhaps time is a faulty measurement of progress. Often, we set our most important goals to a time-frame: ‘In 2022, I’m going to achieve X, Y and Z…’ , and decide whether that year has been a success or failure accordingly. The trouble with this approach is that the actual achievement of a goal with a time-frame is often not within our control – this is especially true of large, complex, creative projects. Something comes along which disrupts or blocks our path, or there’s something we cannot get. That’s the way of life. The pandemic is a clear [if extreme] example of this – countless projects have been postponed and work cancelled because of it. In this scenario, what use is it to say ‘I failed to achieve the goal[s] I set for myself this year, therefore it has been a failure?’

Instead, how about focussing on our process as a measure of progress? Is our process making us stronger?  We can control our process: what we can change, strengthen and cut out altogether. It means that attainment is continual and so our fate is not dependent on the binary answer of achieving a goal [yes or no]. Is the process of working towards my goal making me stronger? Have I structured the process in such a way that it makes me stronger? Is there more upside than downside to each part of my process?

An obvious example is auditioning; does the process of auditioning make you stronger or weaker? 

For some the answer is weaker – a protracted period of unemployment, a run of auditions without success, can lead to a feeling of helplessness, a loss of confidence or belief in their ability or a loss of optimism for the future, plus feelings of boredom, fatigue, anxiety.

For others, the audition process itself makes them stronger. They view it as a process of constant improvement; an opportunity to strengthen technique, their voice, their philosophy, their direction, their presentation, their belief system, how they organise their life, how they organise their mind, their understanding of themselves. Knock-backs lead to improvement not frustration.  Who knows when the next piece of work will come along, but the process of getting it can be rewarding in and of itself. Here, the passage of time is no longer a source of stress because we are continually growing. 

Use process to measure progress. Does your process make you stronger?

 

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