What Are Your Short-Term Acting Career Goals?

Coming from my long-term goals, I then got even more acting career specific and asked myself what I wanted from that three-month period that I would be in New York.

Questions specific to your short-term goals

1. What do I want to achieve over the three-month period that I will be in New York?

2. What specific goals do I want to achieve?

3. What skills do I need to develop my acting career?

4. What kinds of acting jobs would I like to book?

5. How will I get those jobs?

6. What resources will I use?

7. How will I keep in touch with my agents?

8. What will I do to promote myself?

9. What will my daily activities be?

10. How will I keep abreast of what’s going on in the industry?

11. Where will I meet casting directors and agents and which ones specifically can help me further my acting career?

My goals were clear for that three-month period:

1. Continue my Meisner acting training at the Ward Studio for the duration of the three months. (for the duration of the period)

2. Take a TV hosting class, which will finish no later than the last day of the second month.

3. Begin to build a working base for my actng career here in NY: Start booking industrials, on-camera commercials, and commercial print work through an agent and online submissions. Start auditioning within three weeks of my arrival.

4. Get new color headshots by the end of the first month. (My headshots were two years old, and they were black and white. I knew the industry was moving to color, and I wanted to be in line.)

5. Finish writing my book for actors by the end of the three month period.

6. Give input to my webmaster for the revamping (the Italian side) of my business Web site (Jolten Educational Events and Entertainment) so that I could begin collecting names in the Fall upon my return to Italy. (This is part of my "other" life. Business doesn't stop while I'm in NY for acting!)

Mission Accomplished!

I’m happy to say that I achieved each and every one of those goals, except number 5. These three months gave me a lot of stimulus to write another section of the book that told about my experience. That’s what the entire last section of the book is about, my experience over those three months. So I did finish writing the book obviously, but just a little later than I had originally planned.

I wanted to tell a complete story that you don’t usually hear from actors, at least not all from the same person, because either they’re too busy to tell you everything they do, or because they’re too afraid. Yes, afraid. Unfortunately this is a phenomenon that exists among us artists. Some are afraid that if they tell you too much, that you will be successful before them. For some that’s hard to bear.

I’m not afraid and as a matter of fact, I wanted to take the first step and encourage more actors to do the same. Acting Career Start-Up: Four Key Factors For Success and actingcareerstartup.com are my first steps in this direction. I think it’s important.

Anyway, I went on a little longer than I wanted to in that last paragraph. My purpose here on this page is not to tell you everything I did, but to impress upon you the importance of setting clear goals and planning for what you want to achieve.

I feel I made significant progress in my acting career during those three short months.

A Simple Goal-Setting Formula

You might know this, but I think it’s worth mentioning anyway. For you to increase your chances for success, your goals must be formulated in a certain way. There is a very simple formula that’s easy to remember. It says that your goals must be SMART:

o S: Specific

o M: Measurable

o A: Achievable

o R: Realistic

o T: Timely

The more specific and detailed you are about what you want in your acting career, the better your chances are of reaching your goal. If you don’t know exactly where you are going, how do you expect to get there?

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What you’re doing is great Anthony. Whenever I read the things on your site, the interviews and even your book, I feel like if only everybody got to read this before they got started, they would be so much better off and everybody else (casting directors, agents, directors, etc.) would be so much better off too.
Personal Manager, Ingrid French

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Tony,
I want to say you changed my life. I want to be an actress so bad, but i began losing motivation when I couldn't figure out what to do. And then I found you! Thanks to you, I'm taking my first acting classes next month! Yippee!
Sara, Pasadena, CA

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Hi Tony
I would like to thank you for helping me with the monologue question I asked you. I went to the auditions for a Drama course and I am happy to say that I have been accepted as a first-year student at the Tshwane University of Technology. Please keep on sending me those newsletters and let me know where I can find books that will help me in my acting career. Thank you once more. Have a blessed day.
Sincerely
Edward Thaba -South Africa

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Dear Anthony,
Just wanted to thank you for bringing me in to [audition for the video], meet you and chat this Saturday. I was really excited to hear about your working on actingcareerstartup.com and even took a look at it today - it's awesome! You are very well-spoken, knowledgeable and enthusiastic, and it shows through the work that you do! I hope our paths in the industry will cross again and really enjoyed meeting you. Thanks, again and best wishes with your very important work!
Warmly,
Gretchen, NY, NY

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Hey Tony, thanks for the info, yours by far is the most useful, I am 30 years old, and I myself always (secretly) wanted to be an actress, but I never knew where to begin, so thank you. You have given me hope!
Ana C., Tampa, FL