Sara
It is possible to live the life of your dreams and truly make it in entertainment. But, doing so takes more than understanding what you want to achieve and making a commitment to follow your passion. While this is a great start, seeing your dreams come alive also takes commitment, creativity, talent, strategy, resilience, and a lot of hard work. How can you reasonably expect to do what you set out to do?
Once you understand exactly what you want to do in entertainment, create a strategy. This is a business plan, of sorts, for yourself. You’ll need to move from understanding where you want to go, to understanding exactly how to get there. In other words, you’ll need to put a plan into place that includes tangible steps that will jumpstart your journey.
In order to create an effective strategy, it is important to know intimately your own strengths and weaknesses and develop a plan that best utilizes these skills and abilities while accommodating for any weak spots. You’ll also need to put a realistic budget into place that is aligned well with what you’re attempting to accomplish. You may need to have funds saved up for travel, transportation, generating marketing materials, a new wardrobe, and other key components of carrying out your plan. You’ll also want to consider saving for acting or modeling workshops, training events, networking events, beauty and health care costs, and anything else that will ensure you are always presenting at your best.
When it comes time to execute your plan, you shouldn’t be afraid of putting in the work necessary to get to where you need to be. Passion fuels motivation, and this is great, but you’ll need to put in the grunt work to turn your passion into reality. This is true of any career goals you set for yourself. You’ll need to keep an eye out for auditions, open calls, online castings, and other industry opportunities and be unafraid of really putting yourself out there.
When you start to put yourself out there, you will inevitable experience rejection and you may have to go back to the drawing board a time or two to rethink your original strategy. You’ll have to have resilience and a “tough skin,” so to speak, continuing to push forward despite these setbacks. When you receive “nos,” ask why. Make sure you are leaving each casting or audition with a clear understanding of what you need to work on to continue developing your skills. Sometimes, you’re rejected for reasons that have nothing to do with your talent and this is important information to have in your back-pocket as well.
Remember, investing in your own happiness may not be easy, but it is always worth it. Don’t be too hard on yourself – as they say, try and try again. It takes courage to pursue your passion. Make sure you take the time to acknowledge this courage.