For many years we have been a career counselor of sorts to a number of actors, fine artists, musicians etc.

We have found one factor common to ALL artists who had not attained the success they were seeking:

PROCRASTINATION.

Procrastination is defined by the Webster’s New World Dictionary as the action of deferring action; delaying: procrastinating until an opportunity is lost.

You’ve probably never had sides or a script sit on your kitchen table while you watched that last episode of House (of course, you were doing character study!) or maybe went out with some friends (you can go over them in the morning before the audition, right?). You’ve probably never sat and thought about calling that manager or casting person who told you to call wondering what to say. You’ve probably never done one of an unlimited number of things that didn’t get you that one step closer to your dreams.

Or maybe you have?

You see, as an artist, you are in a peculiar situation. It’s not like you go to an office or punch a clock. You are the one deciding your fate. You are an entrepreneur. You need to handle yourself like a businessperson and yet you’re an artist.

Ultimately the artists of this world are the trendsetters, the future makers and the people who dictate what the future will be. So it is important that you as an artist put yourself in a position to help create a better future, because there are lots of people with no artistic vision creating purely on greed or worse and we need artists to at the very least balance that out!

What does this have to do with procrastination? Simple. Each moment you waste, each minute you are not moving yourself forward you are moving backward. So do it! Whatever it is that YOU need to do – do it now!

FEAR is said to be Fictional Events Appearing Real. As an artist you don’t have time to be afraid – of anything. But if you look at FEAR as described here, you really don’t need to be afraid of anything anyway! If you want to achieve the success you always wanted, you need to just jump in and do whatever you need to do.

Here are some tips we know that will help:

1. Write down your goals. Did you know that Jim Carey wrote himself a million dollar check and kept it in his wallet vowing that he’d be able to cash it one day? Yes, he can certainly cash it now!
2. Pick a time each week (like every Sunday night) to write out what you need to do that week in order to accomplish some larger task (such as getting an agent or doing a play, etc.). It’s best to get in a rhythm and use the same time each week.
3. Write out a “Battle Plan” before you go to bed each night that will be your actions for the next day. All of these actions are based around your weekly list.
4. At that weekly “meeting” with yourself, take a look at what you accomplished in the past week and what you need to work on still.
5. If you ever have a thought like “I’ll do that later” take that as a sign that you need to do that thing right then – and do it!

I think you will find that things will change rapidly for you and your career!