Keeping yourself prepared is one significant way to make sure that luck is on your side. Success in our business requires 120 percent effort every day, so you must always preparing and working on your craft. Work hard on your dialects, your monologues, your auditioning, and your camera skills so that when opportunity comes, you are ready.
You will never know when opportunity will come knocking and when it does, if you’re not ready, it will fly on by. Opportunity will always award those who are prepared and ready, and by investing time and energy in being prepared, you will keep luck on your side. The deceptive thing about luck is that it is not luck at all, those who are “lucky” are those who spend hours behind the scenes preparing and practicing.
Don’t procrastinate on a project, instead focus on it and follow it through. Don’t allow yourself to make excuses about why you are not working on scripts or audition material. Have the discipline to always be working. And you will see that with the energy you exert on yourself and your career, opportunity will come and luck will reward you.
This is an analogy I have used many times: You have to think of yourself as a professional athlete. You can’t expect to play any sport professionally or dance professionally and not train on a continuous basis. You have to keep your skills sharp and ready so that when opportunity comes, you can jump and create your own luck. The more skills you have, the more opportunity you will have to be lucky. If you’re always ready and always preparing, luck opens her arms to you almost always.
When Carli Lloyd made a key goal for the United States women’s soccer team against the Germans in the semi-finals of this year’s World Cup, to the question of how she prepared for her amazing goal, she simply said that it was the countless of hours of penalty kicks after practice for the past four years that helped her to be ready for her big moment. A clear example of energy and preparation that helped her create her luck.
Here are four ways you can help create your own luck:
Don’t procrastinate. You have a thought of an idea, so act on it immediately. Trust yourself that idea will create something for you. It always does!
Create your own projects. Shoot a short with your iPhone and upload it to YouTube or Vimeo. Have a reading at your house and invite some people to help create a performance atmosphere. This type of energy will always open doors for you.
Always be reading. Read out loud and read to educate yourself about the world. It will spark inspiration in your creativity and give you ideas to create your own projects.
Always be auditioning. If you’re not getting called in, audition yourself so that you can be ready. You can’t expect to have a good audition when you haven’t placed yourself under pressure in weeks. Put yourself on tape, send it to a friend, and work on your monologues with a friend.
“Diligence is the mother of good luck.” —Benjamin Franklin
Follow @DouglasTaurel and learn more about his work at: www.DouglasTaurel.com www.TheAmericanSoldierSoloShow.com
