The Great Acting Blog: “How To Get Off A Plateau And Excel”
I often advocate the idea that each individual actor should become an expert of acting, especially of their own acting, as oppose to leaving it to directors or somebody else to explain things and tell them what to do. Becoming an expert means that your skills will be a cut above most other actors, which is a very useful asset to have in a very over-crowded profession.
I stumbled upon this article which explains how to overcome the plateau of being “OK” at something, and going on to excel at it. I think it makes a lot of sense and is easily practical. I’ve summarised the key points below….
– the “OK Plateau” is the point where we can perform a task efficiently enough so that we stop caring about improving at it. When pursuing all goals, after an initial period of rapid improvement, we reach a stage where we’re comfortable in being good-enough but lack the motivation to get even better. We reach a point where we operate on autopilot.
– the trouble is, we can’t improve when we’re on auto-pilot.
– people who become experts operate outside their comfort zones and study themselves failing. For example; when practicing, mediocre musicians tend to focus on pieces they are already good at, because it’s fun to succeed. However, expert musicians focus on pieces they haven’t mastered, which they find difficult. The way to master a skill is to practice to just beyond your level of ability.
– we go into auto-pilot when the conscious part of our brain stops focussing on the task – this is the point where we decide that we’re good enough at it, and so we stop improving, we plateau.
– “deliberate practice” is what distinguishes experts from everyone else.
– experts establish deliberate strategies to stay out of auto-pilot mode while they are practicing. They do three things: 1. they focus on technique. 2. Stay goal orientated. 3. they get immediate feedback. They force themselves to be conscious and thoughtful. [this is relevant to the rehearsal stage for actors: point is don’t just go through the motions of the scene and then let the director pick up the pieces. Analyse what you’re doing for yourself, so that you have you’re own view about it and how you might improve. Further, if you want to be a producer as well, you’ll need also to be able to take care of your own work, you’ll need to be an expert in acting. Repeat: don’t leave it to directors to be experts on acting, become one yourself].Â
– The volume of practice we do has little to do with improvement, rather it’s how deliberately we practice that counts. There is little correlation between how long you practice a skill and your level of mastery. The most effective way to transcend the “OK Plateau” is to cultivate conscious control over the thing we’re practicing and to actually practice failing.
– To get good at something the amount of practice is not so important as how you spend your time practicing. Regular practice isn’t enough, we must watch ourselves fail and learn from our mistakes.
