The Great Acting Blog: “If Not, Then Not – There’s No Need To Panic”

The Great Acting Blog: “If Not, Then Not – There’s No Need To Panic”

Time passes and we panic that we might never accomplish our goal. We become gripped by a fear which causes us to lose our focus and clarity of thought, our effectiveness is impaired. Too often we make big life and career decisions when in this state. This is a mistake because, in a bid to stymy the fear, we can jettison the exciting, uncertain, meaningful goal and go for something safe and meaningless instead [most commonly, this means quitting our creative work and doing some sort of salaried job instead]. However, this is most certainly not the time to make those decisions.

What’s really needed is an acknowledgement that our fear is just a vague feeling, that yes it needs to be addressed but that it’s not actually real, and there is no need for it to paralyse us or cause us to make rash decisions. Cold, hard, clear thinking should be the order of the day. This means returning to our goal and the actions needed to accomplish it. This focus causes our fear to dissipate because we are once again in the land of the concrete, the properly defined, where we can take purposeful action and have some measure of control.  After all, it was a lack of focus and control which created our fear in the first place, a drift into the nebulous world of feeling.

In the end, a little bit of insecurity is not actually a bad thing because it drives us on. But, there really is nothing to be frightened of, we will either accomplish our goal or we will not. And if not, then not. Move on to the next thing.

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