People ask me how to make it in the business, or how to break into Hollywood, or how to be successful. A lot of folks in showbiz laugh at these questions because they’re ridiculous, but they’re not stupid questions. The question is based on a common belief that there’s a global endpoint or a high-water mark, but the ridiculous part is that there is none. I don’t blame the asker of the question.
The way to answer these questions is by following two paths…
One path is get specific.
What does it mean to break into Hollywood? Does it mean to be set for life financially and have 10% of the US know my name? Does it mean to get hired to direct a commercial for one of the top 7 beer companies? If we figure out the specific meaning of success to us, we can work to achieve it. It has to be very specific, though and can’t have caveats.
The benefit of this is that we have clarity and we’re solving problems to get to a goal. Life is a game.
The downside is we can fail. It’s daunting to commit to a big goal. Also, when we accomplish our thing, it probably won’t feel like we expect. What then? Do we just stop our work?
The other path is to live in success.
If I want to be a screen writer and I sit down with a pen and paper this moment and start writing a screenplay, I’m a success. I’m a screen writer. If I want to be an actor, I can download a script, find someone else online that wants to read the script with me, or walk up to people on the street and ask them if I can act for them, then do it.
SUCCESS!
With this approach of doing, we have the opportunity to fill our time with the thing we care about and get better at it at the same time. That’s living a successful life.
If we want to make it in entertainment, one way is to make it… to make… to make actual stuff and live in the work.
The benefit of this is that if we feel successful where we are, we are more likely to feel successful in a few years when we’ve accomplished more. If we feel unsuccessful now, we are practicing that feeling. We will create more work and we’ll search less for meaning in the work besides the completion of it.
The downside is we can get bummed out not knowing our timeline. We can get distracted and possibly uninspired to keep growing.
Balance it out
We can find balance and flow in a combination of paths. When we get general about success, that’s basically a way for us to dive into distraction or depression. Getting specific can help us evaluate what we’re doing right now.
Celebrating the work instead of the reward gives us daily motivation and takes some of the pressure off. It reminds us why we’re doing it and helps us get straight about what matters as a creative: creating.