Breaking In New Shoes...

I often label my procrastination as laziness, but more accurately I think it is 'fear in disguise', i.e. If I don't try, I won't be disappointed. This is the twisted (and mostly unconscious) logic that I believe operates behind my inertia. The behaviour often looks like laziness (hence the title of this blog 'acting lazy') and can take the form of staying in bed too long, writing lists of things to do and then not doing them or sloping about in my dressing gown but what I usually feel is like a rabbit caught in the headlights. 

I have a few good days at tackling things and then something happens that throws me off and I feel I'm back to square one. Recently a lot of things have happened to throw me off. The last few months have been hard in general. Obviously a break-up is a major blow, but so is losing 3 iPhones in as many months. Last Friday my latest replacement went for a burton down a drain when I was unlocking my bike. I couldn't believe it and fell to my knees shaking my fists at the iPhone gods and yelling "Noooo!" whilst frantically scraping  at the drain cover like a madwoman. The only upside of this was the kindness of the lovely Samuel, a complete stranger at the time and a "local beggar" (his words) who without a second thought stripped off to the waist and dived down the drain to retrieve the handset. He has restored my faith in mankind. Sadly, however the phone itself, despite initial promising signs of recovery has today committed suicide. Since we run our lives by our smartphones these days and are tied in to contracts, this is another blow. Not getting jobs from the last two auditions I've had in a while, whilst hearing of other people's successes is a confidence-knocker. This is now reading like a general list of 'moans', and next to Samuel's plight, mourning the loss of what must seem to him a frivolous and pointless gadget when he can't afford to eat, reminds me of how lucky I am in comparison - which is yet another stick to beat myself with! Basically I'm in a funk and I need to get out of it. 

Whilst procrastination often seems to be my default response to things when they go a bit awry, and there are complex reasons behind it, does that mean I should just give in to it? Of course not! Procrastination is also a habit, and one I have to believe can be broken. Naturally there are setbacks, but to use the analogy of an aeroplane straying slightly off course and navigating it back, if you refocus your efforts you will eventually reach your destination. 

Last year I went a free two day Coaching Course run by The Coaching Academy. Naturally, it was really an advert for their proper full-on course to become a qualified coacher, which costs thousands and therefore completely out of the question. It also seems to me that many people who don't quite know what to do with their lives become coachers. Maybe that's unfair, but I would personally feel a bit of a fraud advising others to become more effective, organised high achievers when I struggle with identifying, setting and achieving my own goals. At least once a week I get an email from them, urging them to come on one of their courses or to recommend a friend, but which also includes a link to their blog which has some useful titbits: http://www.coachingacademyblog.com/?p=5421 

This entry had some timely advice about breaking negative habits and forming more useful ones. The writer (Susan Grandfield) compares the negative habit that you want to change with wearing a comfortable old pair of shoes. You know they are worn and others are noticing how old they look, but they fit really well (so well that you don't even know you're wearing them) and they don't give you blisters! You know you need some new ones, but the idea of traipsing round the shops trying them on for size and perhaps not finding any that are suitable is painful. And then you have to break them in. Grandfield suggests doing the following: 

• become aware of the behaviour or thought that you want to change and specifically when they act out (you may want to write it down so that you can start to recognise the pattern)

• every time you feel yourself doing or thinking that thing, pause, take a breath and change your physiology or your environment

•  identify what behaviour or thought you would like to have instead

• start doing it and keep doing it for 21 days

She adds that it is more realistic to assume that breaking a habit and forming a new more useful habit will take up to 100 days! Ouch... I'm not sure what that means if in terms of setbacks, where I go back to old habits, which can happen as frequently as once or twice a week (and if I'm honest, more). But hopefully it doesn't mean I am completely back to square one - even if it looks like square one! 

Coincidentally I have also invested in a new pair of shoes because I had to admit that my old comfy ones were beginning to let the rain in and were looking like they were discarded by a tramp. The new ones pinch a bit and feel 'odd', but I'm sure in 21 days or less they will feel like they belong on my feet!

Someone posted this on Facebook. Don't know who took the image, but it seemed fitting and it amused me!

Trying To Get A Nibble

I do sometimes wonder why I have picked a profession that is precarious at the best of times and a mean and fickle friend at the worst. Where one moment you can be brimming over with confidence and the next you can doubt your ability to walk and talk convincingly at the same time. However I comfort myself with the knowledge that when I was trying to have a sensible career as a teacher, it was still a lean and precarious occupation with part-time variable hours and short term contracts obliging you to effectively work a lot for free; sudden budget freezes, loads of prep and ungrateful 'audiences'. May be the two aren't so dissimilar... In many ways, it was becoming a teacher that re-ignited my 'guilty secret' of performing, long suppressed as a teenager. When I left teaching, burnt out, I did briefly think about retraining in something practical and tangibly useful, such as plumbing, but then I remembered that I'm about as handy with a spanner as an orangutan with an iPad and since you never get a standing ovation for unblocking a u-bend, I decided to 'follow my dream'. Trouble is unless you're a 'success' (and defining that is never easy - even well-known actors fall on hard times and crisis of confidence, according to many of their autobiographies) one can easily start to wonder if 'following your dream' is just another way of saying you're deluded. Particularly as the lack of stability and 9-5ness highlights any procrastination-based transferable skills you may have acquired and naturally I'm the first to admit that I have those in abundance!

So weeks can pass with nothing promising acting-wise on the horizon - except vague assurances or promises that I've learnt not to pin anything on. A few workshops here, a ten minute play there and a crashingly boring film all pass, making the nightmare, yet adrenalin filled experience of Faustarse fade into memory as a dull ache. Never do I want to experience that way of working again, but why oh why can't things be blended into a 'smoothie' of a constant and manageable workload of paid, yet exciting and stimulating work, with interesting and supportive directors? Well, apparently it can't, because acting ain't like that, and neither is real life, which is why I have decided to write my own one woman show in partnership with a friend and sometimes collaborator, but more on that another time...

In the meantime I have had two auditions in a week. Last week I had one for an interactive audience-participation improvisation piece of site specific theatre-type-thing in London. It was a two hour workshop audition and I felt very comfortable and in my element. It was a very young company in both senses of the word and I had at least ten years on the next oldest person there, and many of them seemed to know each other. it was the second of two large workshop auditions and therefore I made some bold choices in order to stand out. Perhaps with the benefit of hindsight, drawing 'Hitler' on my balloon character and trying to 'sell' a ball ("I only need one ball you see") to another balloon character did not endear me to the casting crew as someone to lead an innocent audience member though their 'life' as their 'avatar', but then you never know. I just know I didn't get it.

Today I auditioned for a  research and development workshop of a play, which if I get will be improvised this weekend. Didn't get off to a great start, was slightly late, discombobulated (not least because the lovely Johan lives just across the road, but the less said about that the better) and I wasn't great on my audition piece. The writer was clearly not impressed but directed me to do it differently, which I did, so at least I showed could take direction. Prior to this we'd discussed money; "between £70 - £100 depending on experience", she'd said, and obviously I grabbed at the higher figure, else I would I seem to lack belief in my own ability if I'd picked the lower. Besides it's a day's work spread across two days, so it seemed fair. But discussing money is never comfortable, at least for me, especially when she pursed her lips and said "well let's see what you can do then.." (I've since learnt that my kind 'civilian' friend who knows her through their kids and recommended me, revealed that I often "work for free". Hmmmm.... How do you thank someone for recommending you whilst gently cursing them for revealing my desperate-to-work and 'amateur' status?). More appropriately for what she actually wants me for, the writer then asked me to improvise a piece for her (although rudely as a 50/60 year old - shall I just get my coat?!). This one she liked and thought much more 'real' than the audition piece I'd prepared for her. I will find out tomorrow if I'm successful. Since I thought I'd done well on last week's audition and didn't get it, I'm half tempted to think since this one went at least partially tits up, it's in the bag. But I won't.

It only takes a few knocks to feel rather bruised and life has dealt a few hard blows recently. Whatever the outcome I shall try and adopt an attitude of 'hey ho...'  I was surprised to hear a good friend, who has had much success - at least in the world of advertising castings, complain last week over a pint how lacking in confidence in her own abilities she currently feels. At least I am in good company then. Peaks and troughs mate... peaks and troughs.