The Actor's Success: Free Stuff

Success is Where You Focus Your Attention

The Actor's Success
the online eZine for Actors
who want thriving careers
from Robin Jones

Volume I, issue 1
August 2004

"Success is nothing more than going from failure to failure with
undiminished enthusiasm."
--Winston Churchill

Immerse yourself in a successful mindset and never deviate from it;
this is the route to success, and the only one.

You’re thinking, “yeah, right – there are too many obstacles to
consider.” You have to make rent, right? Not to sound unkind,
but I don’t care about your fear of not having enough money. If
you have the passion for this business, you’ll find ways to create
that money. If you don’t, get out now and find the thing that
does turn your crank.

OK, I do care about your fear. I want you to learn to be very
gentle with yourself, allow yourself tons of failure—that’s where
the best learning is—and be resilient in the face of self-doubt
and discouragement.

Consider that every time you build and play a character, you’re
immersing yourself in a successful mindset. Plays and Movies
are about ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances.
They’re about people who have great desire and who are willing
to make huge sacrifices to get what they want. What was the last
role you played? What did s/he yearn for? What’s the one thing
your character held most precious, saying, “when I can have _____,
life will be great?” That’s extraordinary desire.

“Yeah, but that’s just a character in a play,” you say. “It’s
not real.” Maybe not, but because your character modeled great
passion for you, you saw yourself in that character. We are
hard-wired to have great dreams, always hungering for more. So
you can give in to the voice of fear that keeps you living an
ordinary life, or you can give way to what you long for, and
embrace the extraordinary. It’s up to you.

Immerse yourself in a successful mindset, embrace failure, and
you will find success.

Now, define what success means to you, and focus only on that
success. I say this for several reasons:

1. You must know what success means, so you know exactly what
you’re going after. Just as a corporation sets goals (and make
no mistake about it: you are a business, [but that's another
issue]) so they know what they’re after, the successful actor
must have a target.

2. You must divert your thoughts away from those that keep you
where you are. I’m not as Pollyannaish as to believe that just
thinking about success will give it to you, but focusing on
failure certainly won’t get you there.

3. Spending time in the dream you already hold may be the best
motivator there is.

So try this exercise, filling in the blanks:

1. The three things I want out of my acting career by this time
next year are: (this can be anything: more money, more roles,
better roles, improve my skills, to move to NYC or LA, etc.)

A.______________________________________

B.______________________________________

C.______________________________________

2. I’ll know I’ve achieved this when:
(be very specific-if the want was more money, put down a dollar
amount; if it’s improving skills, put down the number of classes
you need to take, or another similar measure)

A.______________________________________ by ___________

B.______________________________________ by ___________

C.______________________________________ by ___________

3. Calibrate it: check to make sure it’s realistic and achievable.
If it’s unreachable, pull it back to something you know you can
do. By the same token, don’t make it too easy. Make it a bit of
a stretch that’s going to give you real satisfaction, moving you
forward into your dreams.

4. Set a date that you’ll achieve each of them, again making them
realistic. Fill in the blank after “by” above.

Congratulations! You’ve just set three SMART goals that will
assist you, not only in creating success in your acting career,
but living an extraordinary life. But there’s one step left:
commitment.

Studies show that setting a goal and committing to it in writing
gives you a 65% chance you’ll achieve it. Want to bump that up
to a 95% chance?

5. Have someone hold you accountable. This could be a friend, a
spouse, a coach — someone you trust. Tell someone that these are
your goals and you want them to know about them, fully believe
in you and your abilities, and hold you to them.

If you take these simple steps, you will be giving yourself a
tremendous edge over 97% of all the other actors out there who
are simply floating from audition to audition. Follow through and
success or failure, you’ll immerse yourself in that extraordinary
life you want.

You are free to use material from The Actor's Success eZine in whole
or in part, as long as you include complete attribution, including
live web site link. Please also notify me where the material will
appear.

** Attention eZine editors & Site owners ** Feel free to
reprint this article in its entirety in your eZine or on
your site as long as you leave all links in place, do not
modify the content, and include the resource box as listed
above.

If you need additional articles, check out my article
archive for fresh new content you can use on your website or
in your eZine FR*EE! http://www.robinjones.biz/free