Time Wasters

Attention All Actors!: Beware Of 5 Killer Time Wasters!

Time Waster #1: Investing Time in People Who Don’t Care About You

These are the same people who you call to stay in touch, but who never or rarely call you. You run up your phone bill talking to them, even though they don’t care as much about you as you think you do about them. These are the people with whom you visit only at their house; they can never come to you because they’re too busy or because it’s never the right time. These people couldn’t care less about you! In fact, they are rarely there when you really need them. They are selfish and self-centered. These are the people who often complain but never do anything to change the situation. These are the same folks who, when they talk about their personal circumstances, they complain for as long as you let them, but when you ask them how they will make things better, they respond, “I don’t know.” These are the people who have the nerve to criticize you for your efforts in trying to achieve your lofty goals, even when they haven’t done anything to reach their own. Or worse yet, they don’t even have any goals to reach.

Time Waster #2: Trying to do everything alone

It's important to realize that there aren't very many things in this world that haven't already been done. If you have a goal you want to achieve, it's probably not necessary to rethink everything from the very start. It's probably not necessary to re-invent the wheel. Someone has probably already done it. Find out who has, study them, adapt what they do to your situation and model their successful behavior. There are always others who have already done what you're trying to do, others who can help you, others who can mentor you. You can outsource, buy services, ask people, seek advice. Think about how long it will take you to do what you want if you do it alone and then ask yourself how long it will take if you involve someone else. Go for the quality, but also go for saving time if you can. It will be time with which you can do something else to further your acting career!

Time Waster #3: Lying

Someone once told me that the problem with telling a lie is that you have to remember what you said. So true. Sometimes we waste energy and time, trying to protect and preserve our lies, which can get complicated. What usually happens is that sooner or later it all comes out in the wash and you are discovered. You feel like crap. You discover that sometimes it wasn’t even worth it. And more importantly, you probably wasted valuable time and stressed yourself anywhere from a little to a lot to safeguard your untruth. Is it really worth it or isn’t it better to concentrate your effort on something else?

Time Waster #4: Safeguarding Secrets

We all have secrets that we want to safeguard, but sometimes we can exaggerate in doing so. To what lengths we sometimes go to safeguard our secrets! At the same time we all need someone in whom we can confide, someone to talk to, to share our trials and tribulations with. And that's ok. The problem is that these people are not always trustworthy. So what happens? We turn these actions into time wasters. We share a secret with these untrustworty people and we make them swear that they won’t tell a soul. We then find out that they did tell someone and so now our energy, our valuable energy that we could be using to do something to further our career, reach our goals, turns to something that makes us waste time. We are now trying to find out who else they told, scolding the person for betraying us, maybe even suffering the fact that now the secret is out and so on.

So what do I propose? First of all, it is true whether you want to believe it or not, that in 90% of all cases, we attach a level of importance to things that happen to us and around us. That level of importance is either high or low. Try asking yourself if the secret is really worth keeping. Is it really that important that people don’t find out? What will happen if they do? Is it really that big of a deal? If it is, then select your confidants wisely! Look for signals as to how trustworthy that person really is and make sure that when you decide to confide in him, that he really can be trusted. And finally, what if you’re not sure about the trustworthiness o a person? Then don’t tell them.

Time Waster #5: Holding a grudge

Sometimes it will happen that you just get upset at someone, you get angry, furious. And sometimes people do things that are difficult to forgive. I learned many years ago about the power of forgiveness. Either kiss and make up or forgive the person, but don’t let them rob you of your energy, thinking about how much they upset you, about how much you want revenge, to get back at them or how you would like to see them suffer. If you do that, you are permitting them, the very people you are upset with, to rob you of valuable mind space that you could be using for something else. If you decide to forgive, then actually say the words aloud, "I forgive him/her." and mean it. Behave that way when you see that person the next time. Put it all behind you and move forward. It will free you and you can move on.

Don't let the time wasters rob you of time you could be spending to further your acting career!

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Hi Tony
I would like to thank you for helping me with the monologue question I asked in October 2007. 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
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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!
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