Are You a Happy Artist?

“The Grand essentials of happiness are: something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.” Allen K. Chalmers

This quote sums up my personal prescription for happiness! The activities I participate in, from hanging out with my friends, to feeding my dogs, eating fine food, to writing these blog posts, are ALL the things that make up feeling good in my life. My hope for the coming weeks and the rest of this year is that I continue to build a community and a lifestyle that reflects my passions – working with creatives, playing with animals, building businesses and relationships and oh yeah, having F-U-N! The stuff I LOVE!

It is my greatest desire that in this and the next several posts on the subjects of happiness, success, feeling good and more, inform the more content filled “here’s what to do next” kind of posts I also enjoy writing.  To me, the WHY and the feelings behind doing what we’re doing is just as important, if not more, than the WHAT we accomplish, get, or manifest.  (Although I totally still want that stuff too!)

In this life and in particular, this career you’ve chosen, you’ll never have any lack of something to do. That’s what being creative is all about. When you combine your love of creating/acting/singing or what have you with a nice healthy dose of hope, I’m certain the months ahead will have you jumping for joy as you experience a new ease and flow around your pursuits.

One of the ways to have this happen is to practice observing your thoughts and feelings around the activities you’re engaging in.  Although I’d love to tell you to only do the things you “like”, there are often aspects of this business that are unlikeable.  The process here is to “check in” to see if you can create “liking” the things you do. This way some of the activities like auditioning, practicing, working on your website and the seemingly mundane tasks you know you need to do, the “to do” list…will begin to get done. HERE is the only place you actually have control. Your thinking is what creates your feelings and how you feel will determine your actions.  Do some of the things on your list, check in with how you feel, see that it’s better/easier/faster than you “thought” it was going to be, and then the next time you do these new things it WILL be better/easier and faster. For me things shifted greatly when I took my “to do” list and converted it to a “to feel” list!

What kinds of things could you do today for your career?  How about one or more of these? —

• Add a credit or upload new pictures to your personal website and/or submission platform(s).
• Begin learning a new monologue, song or other material for upcoming auditions.
• Set a 30 minute timer and work on your accent reduction, dialects, cold-reading skill or other “tool” you need to work on.
• Research a tv show, director, agency, or casting office to gain valuable insight/info for your database.
• Enter information you’ve learned from your research into you contact database.
• Look at your audition record, statistics and begin a plan to increase your numbers.
• Discover and learn some of the technology you know you need to master to compete in the digital world
• Make a list of contacts you’ve been wanting to reach out to.  From that list, begin writing to one, drafting your cover note.
• Create a plan of action around your marketing list.

…and those are just a few examples of doing something around your career today that will impact your forward progress and results in the future.  Remember —

Thoughts = Feelings = Actions = Results

Staying positive and engaging in activities that make you FEEL happy and successful is KEY.  Tell me your thoughts on this post in the comments!