New Year....Same Me?

To be honest, 2017 doesn't seem like an eventful year for me. Perhaps, I am wrong. But at the same time, hopefully I'm right. 2016 brought an awful lot of life changes and I feel like the fog from all of it is finally lifting. Finally, I have the ability to think. 

I didn't really make a goal list this year. Go ahead-gasp away for I am even surprised. During college, setting goals was so easy. There were set times, a set ending and achievements were nearly always visible...or at least written in the syllabus. But how do you translate that into the real world? 

People always ask me what I plan to do in theatre. What do you mean what I plan to do in theatre? I want to perform. I want to actively work in the business, meeting and collaborating with groups of people, and reach out to audiences of all kinds. I want to with projects that are filled with great depth and truth, as well as ones that are meant to just encourage and entertain. I want to grow in knowledge of myself and of the world through excavating and understanding other people's points of view. I want to learn, discern, and defend exactly what is truth. I want to be able to connect with people of all ages and backgrounds. I want to use my experiences for higher purposes and make a difference, not just in the theatrical community, but on a larger scale-even if it is at a different time of my life. 

So in short: I want to do a lot. But how? How do you set goals in a field where you can't always guarantee employment? Or even know when opportunities will present themselves? What can those goals be? How can you learn how to overcome the roadblocks? Especially when those roadblocks may be that you "didn't have the look" or "that we just had never worked with you before".

I do believe it can be done. Yes: the theatre world has a lot of uncontrollable factors or roadblocks, and true-most of them are based on other people. But we forget that there is one controllable factor. And this factor is one that should never stop breaking through the roadblocks. The biggest and most vital controllable factor is myself. 

Every day we must ask ourselves: How hard am I going to work? Will I go to every audition? Will I learn new material constantly, take dance classes and voice lessons, have a good attitude when I am on the job, come prepared to rehearsal, and do things right? Will I choose to continue to learn about the world by reading books, keeping up with the news, having conversations with people who may not share the same views, and  surround myself in a supportive community who will continue to challenge me? Will I choose to continue when the going gets tough? Will I make goals for myself and push myself to reach them?

I honestly do not have this all figured out. When I said before I didn't make goals-it's true.  To me, goals mean that there is an end. Goals are a prize almost, a kind of achievement. Right now, I don't need goals. I just spent most of my education career focusing on goals. Right now I'm focusing on creating a lifestyle. Such as a lifestyle where I am in a consistent Bible study. A lifestyle that has me putting my family first and also focusing on my career.  Lifestyle where I'm not wasting my off-time sitting in front of a TV, but one that has some reading in it, working on new material, and trying to understand my own points of view. 

It's the lifestyle that form the life and that will help be do a lot.