No business can succeed if the person running it doesn’t actually “run” it, but just lets it wander where it feels like going!  It’s often hard for creative people, in particular, to organize the business side of what they do.  Creativity tends to use more of the right side of the brain, while business skills tend to use more of the left side, so if your left side is a bit “weak” you may find that dealing with things like finances, goal setting and structure building drive you insane!  This then causes you to neglect them and we end up with a person who may be very talented at what they do, but have no idea how to sell and keep track of it.  If this sounds like you, don’t ignore the problem.  Get help.  I do business coaching, of course, but so do lots of people, whether in private sessions or classes, or through places like adult education or TAFEs.  It’s all out there for you – take advantage of it and get your business on a strong footing. That includes you, ACTORS!  You are selling a product – YOU – and you need to know how best to market it and make it valuable to the “buyers”, or in other words the people who are in a position to cast you.

Make 2010 YOUR year. Start strong by making some detailed, well planned and carefully thought out goals and plans, and then spend every day following through on them. There are 3 sayings I find very valuable and make sure I have within view of my desk at all times:

“If it’s to be, it’s up to me.”

“To get the things I’ve never had, I have to do the things I’ve never done.”

“What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?”

Combine those with, “Make it happen” and “Just do it” and you’ve got some pretty good affirmations for 2010!

But don’t just say them, LIVE THEM!

The slow season, and when you should plan your breaks, is around the end of the financial year – June/July. Often, producers wait until the new financial year starts to begin their productions because of the tax implications. Then it slowly starts to pick up again from August.  The Americans come to make their holiday TVCs, and the Australians, of course, make a lot then, as well, not to mention the other offshore companies. The Americans even make some of their Super Bowl TVCs here – which are very high profile gigs for actors. Millions and millions of people end up watching them.

We have a challenge this year because the Australian dollar is so strong. It’s causing many of the American producers to cancel their plans for providing work here – that’s why we lost the film, “Green Lantern”. There is also the challenge of the supposed “strike” that Equity has called because SPAA finally refused to sign the offshore agreement contracts. I won’t get into it here, but even though most people (including actors) aren’t even aware this “strike” is on, it’s creating an uneasy feeling among the Americans. The joke is that the rates Equity wants enshrined in contracts are lower than the usual market rates!

So while there may be less work than is usual in our Busy Season, it’s still better than our slow one. The main message I want to get across is that you must be AVAILABLE for the work that DOES appear. Don’t go away or not be available for any reason and then complain that you aren’t getting any work. Actors don’t leave their businesses at this time of year. Be available and be employed!

So how do you handle that thought, and the accompanying fear that follows it? Do you have any techniques or self-talk you use to tell yourself it will be okay because you KNOW you can handle anything?  Most people can handle a lot more than they think. (This is all covered brilliantly in the best book ever written on the subject, “Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway”, by Susan Jeffers.) One of the the best ways I know to handle fear is to look at the alternative.  If I pull a filling out of my tooth, and am terrified of going to the dentist, I have to weigh that up against the fear of being able to bear the pain of the exposed nerve. Techniques such as NLP, tapping, and cognitive behavioral therapy (Google them all) can also help. The trick is to find the ones that work for you. One good place to start if you have a severe problem with fear is to see a good counsellor to help you work through it.

The alternative is to do nothing and slowly shrivel up creatively, and, for actors, to finally give up acting completely as your pilot light burns out.  You’ll end up bitter, twisted and full of regrets.  (Oh, hey, I’m describing some casting agents!)  ;-)

What evidence do you have that makes you think you won’t be able to handle it, whatever it is?  Are you impaired in some way, or do you just need more knowledge and/or training?   If you’re an actor, do you buy into that very dangerous idea that it’s “okay” to be nervous? (Notice how they often say “be”, not “feel”, as if your entire state of being had been turned over to fear, and that was understandable. It’s NOT!) If any other professional (doctor, dentist, tradesman, anyone) said to you before they started whatever job they were going to do for you (heart surgery, for instance!), “I’m nervous about doing this,” you’d get someone else, wouldn’t you?! I know I would. More than anyone else, creative people need to have the courage of their convictions, the courage to make their creative choices in the face of possible opposition. Otherwise, the creative choices will be made by a “committee”, and I’m afraid (sorry) the phrase “creative committee” is an oxymoron. Can you imagine Picasso saying, “Oh, you don’t like the cube effect I’m using in my paintings? Okay, I’ll change them.” Or Michael Jackson saying, “You’re right, ‘Thriller’ doesn’t work. I’ll change it to “Chiller” and have dancing refrigerators.”  Think about it.

To help combat their fears, I taught my children that they always have the choice to play the BAD “What if” Game, or the GOOD “What if” Game.  They’re both based purely on speculation.  For actors a scenario might be: “What if I go to L.A. and can’t make a go of it?” (The Bad version.) The Good version is: “What if I go to L.A. and it’s everything I want from the very beginning and I even land a job in the first month?” They’re both speculation, and they both end up affecting your decision making.  The difference is one of them is based in fear, and one is based on the belief that you’ll be able to handle whatever happens.

It takes courage to be creative, and courage to get outside your safe box, and courage to, well, do just about anything, anytime, anywhere.  That’s what life is.  A test of your courage every single day. (The most interesting thing of all is that there can be no courage without fear. If you weren’t afraid, then why would you need courage? A courageous person is one who faces their fears and pushes through them.)

So accept that you will have fear in your life – that’s unavoidable. Now the question is: how are you going to handle it when it makes its unwelcome appearances?

Get fear under control and you become an unstoppable force! Not to mention an inspiration to others.

For many people, any kind of planning, goal setting and analysis of their lives makes them feel uncomfortable. They find excuses to put it off, do something to distract themselves from thinking about it, and procrastinate until they forget what they were supposed to be doing: oh yeah, planning their career. It’s what is called “Analysis Paralysis”, where people literally cannot move into the zone required to plan their lives in relation to the creative businesses they want to run.  I run into it all the time when I’m coaching people on career guidance/planning, and not just for actors, but for anyone.

Sometimes, the paralysis has a psychological reason. One good example of this is a young boy I coached once who admitted that if he got highly successful it would upset his father, who had worked in a factory all his life. That boy was destined to sabotage every effort to become successful, and I told him that no amount of planning I could do with him was going to help until he saw a counsellor to work through his conflicted feelings about success.  Most people think a fear of failure is the biggest worry when attempting to become successful – I’ve found that, more often, it’s a fear of success, for a myriad of reasons. From parental approval to not feeling worthy, fear of success causes analysis paralysis in many people. If they think too hard about things, they might figure out that they’re not doing what they should for their careers, and never will, simply because they fear the one thing they really want – success.

If any of this seems familiar to you, if you feel it describes feelings you have, then you need to find ways to unparalyze yourself. Get a good coach to start with, someone you’re accountable to for your progress. That’s why fitness trainers work so well. Sport coaches, in general, are great examples of the type of help everyone needs, no matter what you’re trying to accomplish, because their job is to make their athletes be the best they can be. In L.A., actors not only have managers who help them plot out their careers, but they also have career coaches, who work with them on a psychological level, making sure that fears are kept under control, and attitudes are kept strong and positive.

The book, “The Artist’s Way”, by Julia Cameron, is a fantastic tool for finding artistic blocks that need fixing, and deep-seated beliefs that need looking at. If you can’t find a Creative Cluster to do the work with, then buy the book and do it by yourself, even if you have to find a friend or family member you can talk about the work with as you do it.  There are 12 chapters of exercises to work through, and it’s very powerful for ANY creative person, no matter what area they want to work in.

Finally, you need to think about the old joke: “How many therapists does it take to change a light bulb? Only one, but the light has to really want to change.” No one can change anything about you without your own, strong desire to change it.

Dorothy Parker has rather risque quote I love that illustrates this. When asked to use the word “horticulture” in a sentence, she said: “You can lead a “whore to culture”, but you can’t make her think”.  It’s funny, but so true when applied to trying to change anything about anyone.

Another great quote is from Mark Twain: ”The secret of getting ahead is getting STARTED. And the secret to getting started is breaking your complex, overwhelming tasks into small, manageable tasks, and then starting on the FIRST one.”

In other words, step by step, inch by inch, you break off the shackles of paralysis and walk forward into a bright future for whatever you want to accomplish.

The FIRST “small” task? Analysis of where you’re going and how you’re going to get there!

So, have you got Analysis Paralysis? If so, what are you going to do about it? Take that first step. Make 2010 a great year.