8 Tips on How to Enjoy Your Struggle

8 Tips on How to Enjoy Your Struggle

There is not a single person in the world who sometimes doesn’t feel tired, beaten down by the struggle and stomped by life. We need moments like these to have a different perspective on life, to suffer a little and then recuperate, gather the strength and push on even further. These dark days make any other day shine much brighter, so take it in whenever you have to and stay strong during the process.

As much as you love setting some goals for your acting career, try and also focus on the “life” part of your journey. Try these 8 tips, or rather ideas for ways on how to enjoy your struggle towards acting success, ignore the negative thoughts and stay happy while on this journey.

8 Tips on How to Enjoy Your Struggle

1. Let it go. Stop thinking about the bad things that happened today, last week or since the day you have decided to pursue your new career choice. Don’t stress over not getting signed by a talent agent or not booking that part that you really wanted. Close that door, and move on — you already learned everything you needed to learn from it, and there’s nothing you can gain from constantly reminding yourself of things that make you crave that comfort food.

2. Embrace your passions. There must be something that you’re extremely good at, maybe even genius. When the struggle peaks, set acting aside for a little while and cultivate your other passions. Do you love to write, paint, play an instrument or sports? Embrace who you truly are, and this will be of help in your future acting career. While closing the previous door, open a new one where all your passions have been hidden away since the day you decided to seriously pursue acting.

3. Be a partial realist. Take a look at the choices you’ve made so far from a critical standpoint. Set yourself some realistic and smaller goals that you can achieve in a year or two; have many of those. Don’t try to drive from North Korea to Portugal at once — it’s impossible. Make stops along the way by accomplishing those little tasks. Your goals have to be achievable, but never exchange it for your ambition and your drive to leave the comfort zone and always push forward.

4. Don’t be afraid to take risks. Realistic goals can still be scary — let your ambitions deal with that fear. We all know that we miss 100% of shots we don’t take, as Wayne Gretzky said, so live by this and don’t be afraid to fail. Let whatever is in front of you now to scare you, then breathe in and take that leap. You will never get anywhere without taking that step forward, and it’s one of the ways you can escape the hardships of the struggle.

5. Always have a plan. When you get into your car, you know two things: where you need to get and how you’re going to get there. Apply this to your acting career. During struggle, having a checklist of things to accomplish and trying everything in your power to do so is going to be your savior. Be specific enough about how you want to realize those goals. Make those tasks small and achievable, and keep in mind the four tips from above.

6. Evaluate your strengths. Think of the times when you were the most productive, the most creative and the most genius person. Recreate those situations as often as you can. If it’s your passions that help your genius to grow, embrace them. If it’s a person, specific place or other activities, try your best to connect with them in order to cultivate those strengths of yours. Turn that sparkle of creativity into a full blown fire of a new screenplay or a book!

7. Enjoy your struggle. Like it was said a few days ago, it’s the struggle that makes it great. However difficult it gets, no matter how many disappointments and downfalls you experience, hang on to the struggle. It will teach you many things about the career you’re pursuing, as well as life. Keep an eye on how you progress during this struggle, make changes when you have to, recuperate, shift to the side and continue forward. The longer you hold on to it, the stronger you get.

8. Always stay happy. You’ve chosen an acting career so that you would become a happy person. This, what you are currently experiencing, is part of that career that you desired. Finding ways to enjoy every little part of it will make you happy. You’re on an artistic path, the one that you have dreamed of, so now focus on the things of this journey that make you happy and think of them. Think of what you’re going to become, what goals you’re going to achieve and how great you will be when the struggle is over.

Staying strong and maintaining a positive thinking is not an easy task, but it’s an essential one in such an unforgiving industry as entertainment business. We all knew what we’re getting ourselves into. However, not all of us prepared well enough for this trip, which means you have to try your best to follow one or all of the tips above on how to maintain happiness during the hardships of a struggle, stay positive and continue on the path you’ve initially picked out. It’s going to be exciting and definitely worth it!

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