Episode 233: Actors Who Try to "Make" It Happen

Today I'm going to talk about making it happen or if you're me forcing it to happen. The Language of Letting Go. "Stop trying so hard to make it happen. Stop doing so much. If doing so much is wearing you out or not achieving the desired results, stop thinking so much and so hard about it. Stop worrying so much about it. Stop trying to force, manipulate, coerce, or make it happen."  Now around an acting career, it feels like so much is out of our control, so I get it. The actor mentality is, well, I'm going to make it happen. But again, it's out of our control. "Stop doing so much if doing so much is wearing you out or not achieving the desired results." Recording a podcast, I need number eight, nine, and ten energy, and I was operating at four, so it wasn't working. Also, there's obsession. Oh, obsession. You know, one of the things that I used to suffer terribly from was that my thinking was unbearable because I would just obsess about wanting to be a working actor or a famous actor, or I want this, I want that. How am I going to make this happen? It was so toxic in my own brain. Stop trying to force. To manipulate. My thinking was crazy. So I would do, I would do, do, do, and force, force, force, even though it wouldn't get me the desired result. I would think, think, think, trying to get the universe to get me what I wanted. And I'm not talking about positive affirmations here. I'm talking about worrying, thinking, obsessive thinking, and stinking thinking. And all of this was about trying to make something happen instead of stopping, taking a step back, observing, asking myself if it was healthy for me or unhealthy for me to do this, and then maybe responding. That is the anecdote to this. That is the way to change things around, and I do this at Acting Business Bootcamp by ensuring you're getting the best training, the best business skills, and learning how to manage this. The obsessive doing and the obsessive thinking. Making things happen is controlling. We can take positive action to help things happen, that's more of a response, and we can do our part, which, again, is a response, but many of us do much more than our part. We overstep the boundaries from caring and doing our part into controlling or overcare taking or over coercing our careers. And this is the thing, controlling is self-defeating. It doesn't work by overextending ourselves to make something happen. We may actually be stopping it from happening. Let that land. Wow. I wish I could return to that 18 or 19-year-old girl and teach her the lesson of let. Not even God can change the past, and I can only coach you and teach you from the lessons I've learned because I know people, and I can see when I get myself into it that it just doesn't work. It's painful to understand that when you have a goal, you need to align your thoughts and then align your actions in positive, affirmative, and effective ways. You're gonna have to do a lot of un uncomfy things to get successful. "Do your part. In relaxed, peaceful harmony with the universe. Then let it go. Just let it go. Force yourself to let it go. If necessary, act as if you're letting it go. Put as much energy into letting go and relaxing as you have into trying to control you will get much better results." Learn to let things happen because that's what they'll do anyway. Learn to let things happen because that's what's gonna happen anyway. And while we're waiting around to see what happens, we will be happier, and so will the people around us. I'll be happier and have more energy to do the things that will be effective for my career and life instead of ineffective. So instead of worrying about whether agent x, y, or z will call that, I focus on something that will actually be effective, like reading a play or taking a class. Think of that energy instead of staying home and worrying or staying home and forcing. Let it happen. Take the steps, and then let it happen.