Staying Creative

One of the biggest obstacles I found working in the professional world was that I would find myself at times waiting for the phone to ring and hope it was my agent with an audition.

It’s quite frustrating when you are in a situation where you don’t find work because you haven’t worked much and therefor to get the work that you want, you need to have worked in the projects that you can’t work on because of you have a few credits under your belt. So it becomes this circle of closed doors that are very hard to get open. Eventually you find a way past this obstacle either by great connections or by sheer luck and landing a great job through a great performance.

But in that period where you find yourself working a job that doesn’t fulfill you and doesn’t pay much, you have to find a little self-motivation and be adventurous enough to create your own projects. And this can take many forms such as getting together with your artist friends and collaborate in low budget projects, or you can read plays together once a week and find one that resonates with all of you and then find a venue in which to play it in.

Or you can take a different approach and coach your fellow actors. You can write plays or scripts that you can produce with a small budget. The point is you have to get of your ass and your Netflix marathons and get to work. It can be something that takes a few hours or it can become a big project that takes months to complete. As long as you put all your passion into it and make sure you set a deadline to have it ready, you’ll be working. And then comes the scary part, showing it off to the people you trust. But don’t get me wrong, this is also the best part because you’ll be getting an outside perspective about your project and they’ll act as your audience. Telling you in confidence what works and what doesn’t.

You have to trust your gut and keep working. And this took me a very long time to realize. I stayed home and I was constantly waiting for the phone to ring but once you get tired of this you get to work. If you put positive energy out into the universe the universe will provide positive energy for you too. I hope this inspires some of you to keep on going and keep following those dreams. We are our own worst enemy and if we allow ourselves to drag us down, it will be only up to us to climb back up.