The Actor's Success: Free Stuff

Dealing With Rejection

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

Volume II, issue 2
February 2005

"I take rejection as someone blowing a bugle in my ear to
wake me up and get going, rather than retreat."
-Sylvester Stallone

Feelings of rejection may be the single biggest reason
many actors give up on the business, and it's
understandable why:

A. You're in business for yourself, and the product you
sell is you. Every time someone doesn't buy you--which is
often for most actors--it can hurt, if you let it.

B. The competition for what you're selling is intense and
it can often feel as if the deck is stacked against you-
that there is always someone "better" than you.

C. Not only are you selling the most personal of products,
against many other entrepreneurs selling the same thing,
but you're asked time and again in acting classes to take
down your emotional armor and make yourself vulnerable.
Expose yourself only to be turned down enough times, and
it's bound to take a toll on your enthusiasm and
persistence.

But rejection is not an actual event - it's a state of
mind. Reframe the way you think about what happens, and you
can actually make it an opportunity for progress.
Skeptical? Read on.

Here are three techniques many actors have found helpful
in dealing with rejection.

1. It's not about you

You hear this often, but come on, how can it not be?
You're the one that didn't get called back or cast, right?

True, maybe you didn't, but remember that you're a small
business owner, and when you don't get cast, it's simply
that the casting director wasn't interested in your product
at that particular time.

I believe what happens for a lot of actors is that
unconsciously, they take not getting called back or cast as
an affront to their self worth.

Can you imagine a gas station owner feeling personally
rejected because someone didn't need gas as they drove by?
Seems silly, but it's equivalent.

You can dispense with a lot of the negative emotions about
"being rejected" by separating who you are from your
business. When you don't get chosen, it's simply that your
business isn't doing as well as you'd like.

Understand that while you are inextricably linked to the
service you offer, you are not that service, down at your
core. Treat auditions and other times that you put
yourself "out there" with the same separation as a gas
station owner, and they'll become much easier.

Of course the trick is to keep putting yourself out there,
and still get cast more often. Again, it's not a matter of
judging how well you're doing, but how your business is
doing.

2. Get Right with Yourself

I have a friend who was told by a prominent casting
director, "no amount of plastic surgery would ever make you
castable." Brutal.

Nothing I could say to her would ever take away the pain
of that kind of rejection. She opened her heart and
exposed herself to this man, and he threw it back in her
face.

Looking from outside the situation, it's easy to see that
his abuse has a lot more to do with him than it does with
her (remember: it's not about you). Perhaps he just caught
his wife cheating on him or slammed his finger in the door
of his car. Of course nothing excuses what he said, but
the point is that my friend took the remark personally,
thinking it was about her, when it obviously had nothing to
do with her. She happened to be in front of him at the
wrong time and provided him with an easy target.

Even if you never hear anything this harsh from someone
else--and I hope you don't--we humans have an amazing
capacity to send those kinds of messages to ourselves. Go
through "don't call us, we'll call you" enough, and your
inner monologue can easily go from "I'm going to be a
star," to "I'll never make it," "there's always someone
better than me," or some similar self-defeating message.

So regardless of where you hear these lies, your job is to
face them head on. Know who you are and who you are not.
Know what you believe about yourself, and what you don't.

It comes down to this: no one can make you feel badly
about yourself unless some part of you already believes
what they say to bring you down. Get right with what you
believe about yourself, and no amount of rejection can ever
quell your spirit. You'll not only be a lot happier, but
you'll find success comes far more easily.

3. Learn to be Unattached to Results

Tom Lasswell was a brilliant acting teacher and one of the
best actors I ever new - the kind that could
completely lose himself in whatever character he took on.
Every time he went on an audition, he would give it
everything he had, and the moment after he thanked the
casting director, he would convince himself he didn't get
the part. Then if he really didn't, he felt no
disappointment, and if he did, he'd be pleasantly
surprised.

My own technique is to put whatever it is I'm going after
at the time up against the "ten-year-rule," that is, I ask
myself, "will this have the same weight in ten years that
it does now? Most of the time I realize that the success
or failure of this particular goal won't make or break my
career, which releases me from the grip of rejection.

I hear a lot of people say they believe everything happens
for a reason, so if they don't get called back for a
reading, it's because, God or the Universe had a reason for
it.

In all three cases, what we're doing is practicing the
Buddhist principle of becoming unattached. The idea is
that all suffering comes from attachment. Allow yourself
to become unattached, and you allow yourself freedom from
the pain that comes with not getting what you want.

It's an interesting paradox: those who master this
technique can want something very passionately and yet be
completely at peace with any outcome.

Of course all three of these techniques for dealing with
rejection take practice and persistence; they're like
muscles that need to be exercised to develop; use them
consistently, and over time they'll become quite natural
and the kind of persistence you need to succeed in this
business will become easier and easier, and the journey
will become less struggle and more fun. And wasn't that
the point of getting into this business in the first place?

I've included a worksheet that will give you practical
steps for dealing with rejection. It's a PDF file, so you
may need to go to Adobe to download the reader for fr*ee.

Until next month, my friends, I wish you much love and
success.

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 FREE! http://www.robinjones.biz/free