Student Blog: Burning Out Part 2: Tips and Tricks on How To Rekindle the Flame

Actors often experience burnout or some other symptom of being in this business. Burnout is real and inevitable in most career paths, and is not exclusive to acting alone. However, there is a certain type of self doubt and bad self image that comes with being an actor that can almost cause you to be sick of yourself. Here are some tips to overcome these things.

First, acknowledge that this business is hard. Most of your work ends up being auditioning, and a good chunk of the time, those auditions lead to nothing. Instead of focusing on this as a negative, focus on the positive aspects of auditioning as a lifestyle and a task. When you audition, you get the chance to perform for creatives and to show them who YOU are, and then you get to leave the room and never worry about that project again. Center yourself, and you start to feel better about auditioning. It is your time in the spotlight, so use it!

With that, use material that you love and that shows your personality. I have one song cut in my book that is fairly well known, but has an obscure sound. Since I love it, I try to use it for anything that is vaguely applicable. Show your personality through your material, and suddenly your performances become much more human and grounded. Changing your material can be hard, but it is really worthwhile.

Next, I dedicated a space to self taping. Part of the reason I was never submitting was because it was hard to set up my backdrop and tripod, and that allowed me to not be submitting and putting myself out there. Since I wanted to remove the tedious part of self taping, I set up my backdrop in an area of my apartment where it won't be in the way. That way, I had no excuse other than my own fear.

I also decided to dedicate some time every day to checking various websites and checking my email to keep up to date with what is accepting submissions right now. I check all the websites I use in the afternoon, and later at night a couple hours before I go to bed. This helps me avoid the rut that some of us can get in where we check our email every ten minutes, just to make sure that we aren't missing an email for a callback that we don't even have.

I acknowledge that sometimes, when burned out, depressed, or just sick of the business, most actors can't even do this. I am here to tell you - that is okay! Your worth as an actor is not defined by how many projects you submit for, and it certainly isn't based on how many projects you get called back for. This is a tough business, and we are all living through a global pandemic. Forgive yourself first and foremost.

With that, this concludes my two-part blog for January! See you in February.