This Mindset Shift Will Help You Avoid Actor Burnout

By: Eddie Ramos | Feburary 3, 2022 1:30 PM

Actor burnout is a real thing. If you’ve found yourself dragging your feet to an audition, or procrastinating to film a self-tape this mindset shift will help you.

What Drives You?

Sorry to say but like anything else, beast mode will pass. It’s actually inevitable.

Beast mode or flow, as I’ve written about before is the unwavering determination and lively exhilaration one gets when carrying out a task they enjoy.

“Flow state is losing yourself in the moment; when you find your abilities are well matched to an activity, the world around you quietens and you may find yourself achieving things you only dreamt to be possible.”

You have to ask yourself, what drives you to keep going when the task no longer brings you the same amount of joy? When you’re faced with flat-out refusal or procrastination to accomplish that thing.

Read More: 10 Powerful Habits That Will Help You Become A Better Actor In 2022

But before you beat yourself up or question your passion for acting, consider that humans are naturally hardwired to fall out of a flow state. As we adapted from a hunter-gatherer species, the need to constantly be in a state of alertness faded away.

The true enemy has been our increasing world of distractions via the internet and other attention grabbers.

Not only that, but “life” gets in the way. We all hit peaks and valleys in our moods, feelings of gratitude, luck with auditions, and overall productivity.

Major life-changing events and faulty health can take the wind out of our sails and hamper our momentum.

Read More: A Daily Routine For Actors

Drivers can be anything from obtaining money to wanting to impact the world in a positive way. As long as you can identify your personal internal motivation, then you should be able to re-enter a state of flow.

Here are five questions to ask yourself if you want to find out what drives you:

Question #1 | What is your favorite childhood memory?

Question #2 | What was your favorite thing to do when you were at school?

Question #3 | What gets you into a flow state?

Question #4 | What scene from a movie or TV show causes an emotional reaction in you?

Question #5 | You have 24 hours to do whatever you want (with an unlimited budget). What are you going to do?

Out Endure The Next Person

“I’m too tired.” We’ve all heard and probably uttered these words before. The truth is implementing an audacious goal like booking a series regular role or preparing intensely for an audition takes insane amounts of work. Building a business or growing your social media presence isn’t always a walk in the park.

Honestly, I’ve even struggled with motivating myself for months at a time. Yes, I want to make a positive change for my community of actors. And yes I love acting and writing. But “I’m too tired dammit!”

Here’s what I told myself.

I found it deep within myself to push past my perceived limits. To push past my old ways of doing things. Even sacrifice my sleep and workouts to get my goals accomplished.

I set out to “out endure the next person.”

In a world, where technology and innovation move so rapidly— it’s anyone’s game. Anyone can figure out that next thing that makes them successful and frankly, I want to be that next person.

I’m aware this message may come off bullish or hard-headed and it’s meant to be. You can’t wait another 10 years for motivation to strike. More often—those people who become wildly successful are extremely disciplined.

If you want the perfect body, if you want to be a great actor… you must be disciplined and eat, breathe, and sleep those things. The pain is only temporary.

Willingness To Suffer

I love this quote because it points out a particular superpower that many of the most successful leaders possess. As Tim Ferris, author of Tools of Titans describes in his book, the willingness to suffer can be learned.

You can train yourself to get out of your comfort zone and in these gray areas, you find the most interesting things about yourself.

The Mindset Shift - Conscious Burnout

Conscious burnout as I understand it today is deliberate and purposeful exhaustion in order to accomplish your goals. It’s meant to challenge you physically and emotionally.

Here’s the usual pattern of regular actor burnout. Actor A blindly goes for something like a greyhound chasing a rabbit. Round and round until their eventual exhaustion. Actor A will often have an extremely difficult time getting back on track after two weeks of this.

What conscious burnout propses— is instead of “blindly” exhausting yourself, go into the activity knowing full well that you are going to be tired. The act of “knowing” sets the activity in a certain container and you can therefore better prepare your day.

Not only that, most importantly you can set aside deliberate moments to rest. Meditation, napping, prayer, a walk in your neighborhood. These activities become the pillars of structure in this conscious burnout stage.

It’s the same as going to the gym when you know you’ll be sore after. Despite the pain of being sore, you can rest satisfied knowing you put in the hard work.

Avoid Actor Burnout

All in all, we’re all trying to do better in our lives. There will undoubtedly be periods of great action and times of latency.

With the mindset shift of conscious burnout your next burnout won’t last as long or not happen at all. Since you are now going to be aware of how hard you’re willing to work, you will adjust as you go and your relationship with burnout will improve.

As a final note, please proceed with caution. This is not an end-all or be-all solution to work ethic. I don’t encourage actors to overdo themselves and potentially hurt themselves. Use your judgment to calculate the amount of stress your body can take. I offer this idea as simply that; an idea or mantra to consider.

What are your biggest goals for acting in 2022? Share them in the comments below!

This article was inspired by Foundr.com and Tim.blog