Have you ever had a convo with “future you”? I do this a lot. I push myself to consider what age 50 Bon is like and ask her where my current energy should be spent, knowing that TIME is the one thing we all have exactly the same amount of, every day.
“Should I take this job?” “Should I work with these producers?” “Should I take this class?” These are all questions I want you to ask yourself NOT from where you are today, but from where you’ll be in 10 years, 20 years, 50 years.
Everything you say yes to today, you have to answer to, tomorrow. I’m not trying to scare you into saying NO to everything. What I’m asking you to do is to consider — before you sign with that first agent, before you say yes to the copy-credit-meals project in which you must appear nude, before you agree to ANYTHING — whether this one is a “keeper.” I want you to plan ahead to a time when future you has to explain the decision to do that brand-busting project. This is so that you don’t ever have to defend your choices, but instead can celebrate that you’ve lived your life on-brand.
In addition to the brand-building you’re doing every time you say YES to a project that serves future you there’s the beautiful feeling of looking at your resumé knowing it’s filled with advertising space for what you’ll do next. I want you to go through your resumé right now and kill off ANYTHING that isn’t a “hell yes” for where you’re going.
Remove your emotional attachment from the booking (yeah, yeah, I know that’s the gig on which you got your SAG card… no one cares but you) and look at the credits on your resumé to decide which of those are serving future you. Is this credit IMDb-worthy? Was that a festival darling? Do you have excellent demo reel footage from this one?
Or are these credits one for which you will apologize, in the future? Plan ahead. Say yes to what makes you look brilliant and remove credits from your resumé to which you wish you had said no. Be good to future you. That person is holding up something gold and shiny, if you do it right, NOW.
Bonnie Gillespie is living her dreams by helping others figure out how to live theirs. Wanna work with Bon? Start here. Thanks!
Originally published by Actors Access at http://more.showfax.com/columns/avoice/archives/001808.html. Please support the many wonderful resources provided by the Breakdown Services family. This posting is the author’s personal archive.