I previously wrote about how to prevent burnout as an actor. This is so important to do especially as a creative person. I’m so jealous of my friends who leave their jobs at work at the end of the day. Not me. I’m working 24/7. My phone is always on me (I even sleep with it next to me). You never know when you will get a text at 12:44am from your agent saying you have an audition (true story that happened to me last month).
Besides getting out of town and going on adventures outside of the entertainment industry, it’s extremely important to have things in your every day life that keep you connected with yourself and not always focusing on the world outside.
I mentioned going on artist dates in my previous post. Another thing that I love from “The Artist’s Way” are morning pages. I used to do these stream of consciousness pages every single morning as soon as I woke up. It allowed me to get my thoughts down on paper so they weren’t busy occupying my mind. I don’t do these every day anymore, however I do write on my own personal blog every day. So if I’m going through some sort of issue, I can get it out into the world and not have it take over my life.
Another thing that helps to keep me sane is working out. I haven’t always been the biggest fan of exercising. I’m about 100 pounds overweight and while I want to work out to lose the weight, I didn’t like being the biggest girl in the room. I finally had to stop looking at what workouts my friends liked. Instead I looked for what made me happy and that ended up being spin class at SoulCycle. I go to this class 2 to 3 times per week. Although it is helping me in my weight loss efforts, the class is so much more than that. It gives me time to focus on me and not those around me. I’ve found that working out (doing whatever you happen to love) doesn’t just make you a stronger person physically, it makes you stronger mentally. I’m more confident when I walk into an audition room as well now too!
Finally, what I’ve found the most important rule about keeping myself sane is listening to myself. If I’ve made plans to go out one night but end up not feeling up to it or feeling tired, I don’t feel guilty for changing my plans. Being a creative person takes so much energy and time that I think that sometimes you need to be “selfish” and look after yourself first.
While some people in Los Angeles seem to be going 24/7 without a break for anything personal, those people are trying to sprint to the finish line of their goal. For most of us, it is not a sprint but a marathon that we are doing. I’ve been in LA for 12 years now. I can’t even count the number of friends that I’ve had who worked like crazy without ever taking time for themselves but only lasted 1 or 2 years before they left and gave up on their creative dream. While some people might seem to have overnight success stories (and yes, it’s rare but sometimes it does happen), just realize that most of these overnight successes have been working at this for years or even decades.
I really would love to hear the things that you all do to keep yourself sane in such an insane industry! Feel free to share in the comments!