Actors and Decisions

All of the power in your life comes from this.

The decisions you make.

The decisions you don't make.

The decisions someone else makes 'for you'.

All. Of. The. Power.

We tend to frame so many decisions as Right or Wrong.

What if.

None were right or wrong, but simply movement.

Your mental shift (movement) forward.

What if.

No decision was wrong.

What if.

Instead of beating yourself up about a decision, you had your own back. 

If the results you create with that decision are not ones that serve you, you can consider it failure.

Or learning.

Or a path.

We need to get comfortable with discomfort.

So many times, we are deciding to decide.  Waiting to know what the results will be before we act!  Then, having evidence that our decision will be correct, we 'decide'.

See what is happening here?

How about this.

You decide. You do. You learn.

Because by choosing not to act.

Choosing not to do. 

You never learn what works.

By learning what doesn't.

We need to give ourselves the grace we seek in rehearsal. 

We regularly seek and sense permission from our scene partners, our directors, our producers, our acting teachers, to be bad on the way to being good.  To throw out a lot of ideas, get 'on our feet' with them, and start to weave our way through a scene, a script, a translation, to the artistic production we want. 

We take what works. We drop the rest.

If you are an actor who gets the scene the way you want in one try, that is a gift.

Most of us need, in fact, enjoy the process of getting there.  

The discovery.

What we learn.  What works, what defiantly did not work...

Without the pressure of the entire production on our backs.

Give yourself permission to move ahead in your life by making decisions.

Here is a way to start.

Think about a decision you are delaying.

Write it down.

Below that, write your thoughts that keep you from deciding.

Fill the page.

I'll wait.

When the page is full, go back and circle any sentences that are 'court of law' factual.

The rest are thoughts. Your thoughts. 

Thoughts that are optional.

Now.  Find the thought that you believe is the primary reason you aren't making a decision.

When you think that thought, how do you feel?

What is that emotion, if you label it?

Fear?

Panic?

Dread?

Overwhelm?

Boredom?

Find the emotion and give five minutes to asking yourself why?

Why am I dreading this decision? What is the worst that could happen?

If I don't like the results of this decision, what can I learn from it?

Can I have compassion for myself if the result doesn't serve me?

Do I gain anything by postponing this decision, except the relief of not deciding?

Is is really fun to have to decide to decide again tomorrow, next week, next month?

Am I waiting for the decision to decide itself?

Then, my friends...

Decide.

Oh goodness.  

You can do this.

Try writing down a script for yourself.  

If the decision is about a relationship, you can write your first few lines....

If the decision is about a job, you can write down when you will notify your agent, or the employer, producer, director, casting.

If the decision is about your physical health, you can pick up the phone right now and make the call, the appointment, the outreach.

If the decision is about money, you can write down the numbers (money is really just math, my friends) and make your decision from a clear headed place.

If you are still having difficulty.

If you want to run to your couch and stream Netflix.

If you want to eat a bag of chips, call your friends, avoid, avoid, avoid.

Find out what happens if you decide and have your back.

Know that NO decision is wrong, it is only a path.

What if this decision is the way you will learn what not to do next time? What if this decision is the avenue where you travel to your next great adventure? What if the strength you gain with this decision helps you in the near future when you are faced with something more complex, more fraught?

So many times, we decide to decide later.

Our primitive brain encourages this, because Anything New Could Kill Us!

Anything that is not recreating the same patterns of thought our default brain is so comfortable with is the Last Thing that your primitive brain wants to do.

This default brain, so good at helping us run from the bear, is anchoring us to the status quo, the expected, the sameness.  It believes that is safe.

Safety conserves energy.

You know. To run from the bear.

We are not considering crazy, dangerous, threatening decisions.

We are considering the majority of decisions we defer. 

Leaving a relationship. Taking or leaving a job. Having a discussion with an in-law. 

Showing up as ourselves. 

Leaving the pack and being OK being you. 

Being better than OK.

You can start small. Stay simple. 

Get clarity.

And decide to decide.

Don't fail ahead of time by deciding that a decision could lead to failure so you don't try at all because you believe you will fail and therefore your brain will balk at proceeding because of the fear of failure that is in your imagination so I am compelled to write this terrible horrible long run on sentence.

Don't do that.

Give yourself this grace. That decisions will propel you forward.

And failures are learning. 

Chalk up the failures on the way to yourself. Your evolved messy exciting living human life.

You.

An actor who takes action, on and off the stage.

One more idea.

Contemplate all those who have gone before us who decided and proceeded with an idea (computers, electricity, running a 4 minute mile, air travel, receiving the first vaccine for small pox. will these two sticks ignite) which benefited humanity and would Never Have Happened had they not decided to decide. And Fail their way to the break through.

They didn't know how.

Until they made a decision to go forward Not Knowing.

Some of your decisions will be small.  But meaningful to you and those you love.

Some will be grand and could affect the world.

But nothing will happen if you are waiting for the decision fairy to tell you 'Everything is going to be all right".  "You will never feel embarrassed or lacking or lesser than or wrongly judged or misunderstood again".

You likely will.

You can get through a feeling.

In fact, we have one of the only professions where we can actively use all our feelings, good and bad, in our work.  

Oh. That's what that feels like. Got it.

You can survive any feeling, no matter what your primitive brain is screaming at you.

Tell it "thank you for weighing in, but I am going to go with my decision making, higher pre frontal brain."

Actually, write a better line than that.

If you can't decide even one thing that has been weighing on you.

Dare yourself!

It works.