Stop Judging Yourself for Where You are in Your Acting Career

I was going to write a different blog today– but recently I have seen a huge increase in the need to say this.

ACTORS: YOU NEED TO STOP JUDGING YOURSELF

Wish you felt like you were further along in your acting career? Miss a job booking goal deadline you gave yourself? Think you are behind your peers in credits? Concerned that you had a life detour and are just beginning your dreams now? Thought that because other people have succeeded by now that you can’t? Just plain ole expected everything to move faster than it has?

I OFFICIALLY GIVE YOU PERMISSION TO STOP APOLOGIZING FOR IT AND JUDGING YOURSELF FOR IT.

This is a weird industry. One success formula just doesn’t work universally. One road to success will work for one person but not for the next. You need to bob and weave time and time again to find out what works for you.

Now I need to warn you…

There is ONE thing that WILL hurt your progress, your mindset and your heart every single time— and that is all that gross self judgment brew-ha-ha you have kicking around in that head of yours.

Those thoughts of self doubt, bogus comparisons and lack of time is funneling your brilliance & your energy BACKWARDS.

Your circumstances have artfully crafted a fabulous human. A human with intellectual and emotional depth. A human with heart. With insight. With originality.

You can not expect to succeed until you acknowledge the evolving perfection that is YOU.

You’ve heard it before—-This business needs your uniqueness…not your sameness. Your auditions crave your radical creativity, not hum drum predictability.

Your life has carved and crafted an expert at being YOU. Thank yourself for the incredible training that only YOU received to be this current and growing version of yourself and start bringing that in the room. Bring that into your emails. Bring that into your work.

Your future needs you to stop yelling at your past— stand on it’s shoulders and climb to the next rung of the ladder already!

Colleen Finnegan Kahl is an accomplished Theatre Arts Educator, author of this article, and President of Actors Connection. Colleen is an expert helping aspiring actors find their path through acting classes, workshops, and seminars.