As always, I hope life is treating you and your loved ones well. I'm finished with my 11 days of Ramadan so I am feeling pretty darned cleansed. As a result, I'm gonna keep it short and sweet today :)
Sometimes, people call summer the "dog days". Usually its one of the fun times of the year, especially when we are in our school age phase. As a rising (read: not established) actor, the summer time can be the dog days because it is probably the slowest time in the business. Actors spend more of their time looking for work than actually working year around. In the summer that time spent looking for work can get more agonizing because there are less auditions and less opportunities to work. The dog days indeed are a part of our reality. All careers and industries have slower than usual periods. There are times when you just are NOT seeing the forward career momentum that we all want. What should you do? There are a few things that we can do for our respective careers when the primary thing is going slower. That comes later. The first thing is actually something you can NOT do..
You just CANT QUIT!! PERIOD...END OF STORY
First and foremost you have to burn that belief into your mind. If you have made the decision that "this" (whatever it may be for you) is what you want to do with your life and put your energy towards, you have to see it through all the way to the end. You cannot give up! You have to keep going forward no matter how slow your forward progress may be in that given moment. You can never let yourself be defeated by the short term obstacles that life has put in your path. Those things come and go..they will reappear later on in your journey towards your personal gold medal. You can't let yourself be beaten by things that you can overcome with a little bit of persistence, desire and hard work.
Ive been on hundreds of auditions since becoming an actor. In the coming years that number will be in the thousands. As you can guess more often than not people say no. That is absolutely no reason to tapout on the career and life that I am willing to walk through the fire for. Some of you have been rejected by grad schools, some of you have seen your business slow to a crawl because of the tough economy we came out of, some of you got knocked out by an opponent that you thought you could best. Fine..it happens to us all. What is most important is to look at your current situation and look past it to where you can be IF YOU DON'T GIVE UP AND KEEP GOING FORWARD! I can be a series regular on a network TV show in a couple years. Does it change the fact that I am dead broke with a dead end job right now...No. It doesn't. The point is that my current situation DOES NOT prohibit me from becoming that series regular. People who get frustrated and give up often do not make that connection. They often let the current rough times dictate that there will be nothing but rough times going forward. This is not the case guys. You can always turn it around..you just have to stay in the game
So what kinds of things can you do when you hit those career valleys? Of course specifics vary from career to career..but there are a few general things that can help save your sanity
1. Hone your craft: What kind of skills do you have for your career? What skills can you improve upon to give you a competitive advantage?
2. Clear your mind: What hobby, pursuit or thing can you do that takes your mind totally off your career?
3. Realize whats good: It could always be worse. What things are going on in your life that you are thankful for? Sometimes we ignore these when works not going well. don't!
4. Connect and Re-Connect: You should be there for your friends..and they for you. Call one..especially one you haven't talked to in a while. I promise you will feel better after catching up
Its tough out there guys no matter what you do. I don't promise much to anyone...but I do promise that quitting will hurt you far more than anything going on right now. Keep fighting guys...and don't give up
Inspirational quote of the day
"It's always too early to quit."
Thanks for reading.. and hit me up on twitter
Ahmad
@MoviestarAhmad
No comments:
Post a Comment