While acting allows you to use your mind, body, and imagination and gives you the opportunity to collaborate with other actors, writers and directors, you still need to have more in your life than just your work. In good times and in bad, you need to have other interests that nurture and sustain you.
Sometime when you aren’t doing your best work and wonder whether you even know how to act, you have to get away from the self-critic and do something that revitalizes you. This is a time in your life when you need other interests that allow you to get away from your work and then re-approach it with fresh eyes and a renewed imagination.
When a show closes or you have finished work on a movie, it is easy to let the passing of the project and the camaraderie you were experiencing make you feel lonely and empty. This is another time in your life when you have to have other things that matter to you, other things that nurture you. For some actors, it is raising their family and working in the community. Some people make music or write. Some volunteer when they aren’t working and others work with animals. It doesn’t matter what you do, but you do have to find other activities that are important in your life besides your work.
You also need real people in your life. You don’t need people who agree with everything you say and you don’t need people who enable you and encourage you to do things that will harm you and your career. You need real people around you who remind you who you are, both your positive and negative attributes, so you don’t get caught up in some unrealistic image of yourself.
So this holiday season, my gift to you is to remind you that whether you’re just starting out or already very successful in your career, you need to get a life. And to make that life worth living, you need to share it with people who allow you to be your true self.
Eric Barr. All rights reserved
