The Great Acting Blog: “Avoid Career Sabotage”

The Great Acting Blog: “Avoid Career Sabotage”

When we are poised to better ourselves,  the voices in our head try to sabotage us, suggesting all possible, safer alternatives, or they tell us we’re no good, we’re fooling ourselves, we should quit and do something mundane and meaningless. The voices are at their most cruel however, when they fool us into doing something we think is wonderful, but which in fact takes us away from our great actor goal. The most common example of this is getting married, having kids and taking out a mortgage. These actions may be cause for celebration initially, but they create a time and financial pressure which makes building an actor career almost impossible. I’ve seen more actors quit because they had kids than because of any other reason.

Listening to the voices in your mind, choosing one of those alternatives, as many actors do, is an act driven by fear, and is often terminal for the career.

Whatever the voices suggest, no matter how uplifting the suggestions appear to be, we must first determine whether they will help us to achieve our goals, and if we find that they do not, then we must dismiss them.

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