I did it! I took 100% responsibility for my life last week, and it paid off!

When I fell asleep on Sunday, I had the biggest, goofiest smile on my face. I was consumed with joy. More than that, I was proud of myself.

I spoke about this on my blog post for Creative Life, but I want to expand on what I said there.

I acted all weekend.

There have been periods in the past where I have been worried about whether or not acting was something that I really and truly loved to do. Acting on a set can be exhausting. It’s a lot of waiting, the camera can be distracting, and the pressure to do it right can feel intense.

It’s worse if you’re not prepared.

My projects this weekend included a staged reading of a one woman show and a short play, and the filming of a short film that didn’t actually have any dialogue.

It would have been SO easy to sort of phone it in.

But that’s not what I did. I put in the work. I spent hours in rehearsal. I booked meetings with the director and playwright for each respective show. I set aside time to watch the films that each recommended I watch for inspiration.

It’s strange. When they first assigned me these tasks, I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a little voice somewhere in my head whispering ‘yeah… you’re not going to make time to do everything you’re promising to do.’ But I did. And it paid off.

I wrote what I needed to do to prepare into my schedule – breaking it into days — and I followed through. I went above and beyond. I memorized sections of the staged reading so that I could look up and really engage with my audience, I booked an appointment with a coach to work through the material, I arrived at the staged reading in a costume that was similar to what the playwrights had described in their character description (taking off a layer of clothing to ‘transform’)

For the short film, I followed through on my commitment to find an appropriate dressing gown. I got my roots re-dyed (as roots in a period piece would have felt out of place), I spent hours researching for the role, breaking the script into manageable beats, and journalling from the character’s perspective.

Both of these opportunities were unpaid, but with my goal to act in an equity production pasted on my bulletin board in front of my desk, I felt like these were the right steps to be taking to bring that goal closer.

So I took them.

I did the work.

I didn’t make excuses for myself, I just did the work.

I didn’t do the comfortable thing (the thing I’ve done in the past). I didn’t fill my days with so much busy that I’d run out of time to do what was important. I scheduled the work in, and I followed through.

Now that I know I can follow through in this way, the fear of doing the work and still not being good enough is starting to loosen its hold on me. Maybe you have the same fear?

I’m learning that the only way to deal with this fear is to just do the work, take 100% of what you do or don’t do, and then see what happens.