I am excellent at laying out a plan. I love that process. I can lay out a beautiful, great plan. My Achilles heel is executing that plan. I have a daily plan for myself of Voiceover activities, wonderfully blocked out for the day. But I don't always execute this plan very well. why?
I think it comes downs to confidence and certainty. Recently, we put together an entertainment room in the house which includes a new big screen tv. To finish it off I needed some surround sound speakers and I wanted to get my streaming media server going again. I locked onto this goal and executed the hell out of it. Took half a day but it got done and it was awesome. So why don't I always execute Voiceover this well? For the entertainment room, I am completely confident about it. I have no doubts or worries as I know how to do this stuff well and when it's done, it's done. The outcome is certain.
In Voiceover, I am in my first year or so, and as a result I have less confidence. I am still growing. But the real problem is the outcome is not certain. I can send out 10 emails or do a few auditions but what will the outcome of that be? Unknown. I may never hear anything at all. This can hurt confidence as I never know for sure if I did a good job. I am always left feeling, uncertain. It's a strange not that comfortable place to be. It doesn't leave me feeling charged up to go at it again.
I have been thinking a lot about it and I think if you pin your confidence to the outcome, you won't always feel good. Voiceover is not like setting up a home entertainment system. You don't get to sit back at the end and enjoy the beautiful picture and sound and bask in a job well done. There is an element to the job that relies on faith and belief in yourself. This is harder to come by when your are newer in the game and it can be shaken at any time, even for vets. Booking a job is usually far from certain.
So what is certain? The journey. The process, whatever you have set it up to be, its certain. It is the one thing you have 100% control over. Sent those 10 emails? That's certain, job well done! If you pin your confidence to the journey, you are pinning it to something certain. The rest is faith and belief that if your journey is solid each day, good things will happen. But your confidence is not pinned to that faith and belief, only to the journey. Only to something certain that you control. Not booking cannot mess with your confidence now because you're keyed into the journey. Your confidence is now completely under your control, and that's a better place to be.