So, this week, I am teaching my first webinar!
I am so grateful to the awesome Lisa Biggs for letting me come talk to people through her platform!
(I’ll be honest, I’m a bit nervous, even though it’s a topic I know a LOT about…)
If you’re anything like me, or most people I know, you probably have a dream or goal that you’ve been thinking about for years. Or decades. The garage of your mind is so full of past dreams, unfulfilled goals, and half-formed great ideas that you can’t even park your car there.
TBH, I’ve seen worse…but we can do better!
It’s time to Marie Kondo that space. Let go of some old dreams that just won’t happen.
If I’d gotten to work YEARS ago, perhaps I could have performed on Broadway, but it’s kind of a lost cause at this point.
Any time I might spend lamenting over how I could have been a triple-threat and lived in NYC, pounding the pavement as a Broadway Baby is time I could use to finish writing the children’s books that I want to write, the restaurant industry book I want to write, or editing my short screenplays. So I don’t do that.
Full speed ahead.
It’s good to know when to let go of those dreams to make space for new ones, and when you just need to dust them off and make a commitment to achieving them.
But how do you do that?
During my webinar rehearsal last week, my friend Trevor asked the question: Can’t I just do this myself?
Sure. But HAVE you?
We’ve all heard (in a quote misattributed to Einstein that actually originated in one of the 12-Step Programs) that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
So, if you keep expecting your life to change, but you haven’t changed anything about your life, then it’s time to find a group of like minded people who all want to feel more empowered.
If your dream was a real life object, it might be a tennis racket that you haven’t used since college. Or the electric guitar that you’ve only played once in the past five years. Or your French textbooks—textbooks?! Seriously? Get rid of those.
You are NEVER going to crack one of those books so long as Facebook, TikTok, Twitter and Instagram are calling you back for another dopamine hit. And if one day you DO decide to refresh your Francais, we’ve got apps and internet programs now that help you learn much faster and in a much more entertaining way. But I digress…
Author Steven Pressfield talks about the idea of resistance, which is that internal force that pushes back when we want something.
We all struggle with resistance. It’s why it’s so hard to go to the gym, or to pick up that guitar, or why I don’t just do my yoga…
Once we are at the gym, or noodling around on the guitar, or in the yoga session, we feel better! We wonder why we don’t do this all the time! We are going to do this every day now!
But tomorrow, we face the same resistance. We just don’t wanna.
Ya know, I just couldn’t get to the gym today…
The only way to get past this resistance is by creating habits. Gaining momentum. Also, putting “skin in the game” helps (aka spending money on something).
It helps, but it doesn’t ALWAYS work. I have SO paid for a gym membership and then not gone more than twice. I purchased a microphone that sat in a box for about five years. I have bought online courses that I never even began, let alone completed!
You know what DOES work?
Honest accountability to a supportive group of people that you care about. A group of people who are all there to encourage each other to achieve their goals and stretch past their personal comfort zones to accomplish more.
Sometimes, we just need a little help
Not so you can be more “productive.” That word’s lost its shine these days.
But so you can accomplish those things that have personal meaning for you.
Most of us use screen time to relax, even though science has shown that it does the opposite. Things that truly relax us and rejuvenate us are pursuing hobbies, activities and goals that have personal meaning.
(Click here for a great article from Inc. about what will ACTUALLY help you feel less stressed out)
Think about some of your unfulfilled goals.
Are you actively working on them?
How long have you had them?
How long have they been sitting there collecting dust?
Now think about yourself a year, three years, five years from now. What will the future you say they accomplished? What mattered to them?
When I started my accountability group, I had been in acting class for seven years. I had wanted to try voice acting for more than fifteen years. But I didn’t entirely know where to start (the information was much more limited back in the early 2000s). And I was scared. It all seemed very overwhelming, so it was easier to just take really tiny baby steps once in a while and then retreat back to my comfort zone.
But in 2016, my grandma died, and it made me realize how much time I was wasting. I had never traveled. I hadn’t finished any project I’d ever started. I didn’t have any concrete goals besides “I want to make money acting.” And I hadn’t gotten any closer to starting in VO.
I panicked. I didn’t want to get to 84 years old and look back and realize that I hadn’t accomplished anything I wanted to do.
Grandma had just one stamp in her passport, from a trip to visit my Aunt Debby in Germany in the 70s…
So, in the spring of 2016, I went to Italy. I made my first voiceover demo. And that summer, I started the accountability group.
I won’t lie. Running the group was a struggle at first. It helped me get my stuff done, but I didn’t know HOW to motivate others, and it took a long time to learn that. There were so many times I got frustrated and almost threw in the towel.
That’s part of why I write about these things, and why I put together this webinar. Because I hope to help you avoid my mistakes and put together a really great group, so that you can dust off your dreams and actually make use of the ideas and sparks of inspiration that you’ve been gifted with, and share them with the world.
What makes you sparkle?
Dust that dream off and come join me for the webinar!
