The short answer to this question is: yesterday.
I often hear people say things like I'm just not ready yet to start auditioning, or writing, or producing, or whatever it is they want to do. Their main excuse is that they aren't as good as they want to be. They are so focused on being perfect that they are scared to get off the starting block.
In the arts, perfection is not the goal. Not being perfect is not the same thing as failure. Failure is never trying.
This time of year is when the Playhouse West Film Festival submissions start coming in. (The final deadline is April 21st.) And every year I see friends of mine scrambling to finish (and sometimes start) projects that they really meant to be working on all year. Deadlines are good; deadlines force you to act and I am really proud of all my friends who are working on projects. But, if this is your passion; if this is what you really want to be doing with your life then you need to learn to do it without the deadline.
Don't let your perception of not being perfect stop you from starting. At the film festival every year the most common advice is to just go out and do it. So, stop judging yourself. Get out there and try.
Preach!
ReplyDeleteBest advice I ever got was from Meryl Streep: "Start by starting"! Definitely applies here - We actors have no excuse to NOT be creating all the time, whether it's writing our own monologue, a play, a webisode, designing our website, whatever. We need to give ourselves our own deadlines ie: This week I will -finish the first scene, read a play, update my resume... Just START!
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