Ep 14: The Top 5 Mistakes Performers are Making (and How to Avoid Them)

In this episode, I'm gonna share the top five mistakes that I see most performers making today that's costing them time, energy, and happiness in their lives and careers. So you're gonna wanna listen in to make sure you're not doing these things, and if you are, it's totally not a problem. I'm gonna give you a new way to think about it. All right, you ready? Let's go.

Hello, you are listening to the Love Your Life as a Performer podcast. I'm Kelli Youngman and I am The Life Coach for Performers. I help actors, singers, and dancers love themselves and their lives way more. So keep listening to learn how you can love your life, both on and off the stage.

Hello, and welcome back to episode 14 of the Love Your Life as a Performer podcast. Today I'm gonna be talking about the top five mistakes that I see performers making in their careers today. It's gonna be juicy. All right, let's just dive right in. What I wanna offer too is that, I totally get it. I just wanna remind you that I am actively in my careers with all of you.

I am also auditioning, working, creating, believing. I'm in the trenches with you all and what I wanna offer is, last week, I had one of the busiest weeks in a long time. I had multiple auditions, self tapes, COVID testing for a TV show I was filming. There was lots of moving pieces on top of my client calls for my coaching business and finding time to feel rested and be in my personal life and enjoy my day off with my partner and finding time to connect with people, voice lessons, dance classes.

Like I actually look back and I'm like, Wow, that was a little wild, but, the interesting thing is, is that even though there were moments when I felt like my days were full, or even at the end of the week when I was like, Okay, I'm a little tired, I could use some rest, for the most part, I wasn't moving through the week overwhelmed or frantic or even frustrated or burdened by my calendar.

I actually was feeling super light, excited, open to possibility. There were still a lot of, again, like logistical things that I had to be mindful of and present and just on top of in terms of navigating my energy and my schedule. But it didn't feel hard. Like I was telling myself I was ready and capable and here for it all, which allowed me to move through it with so much ease.

Like I actually looked back and I was like, Wowie. That was a lot. That was a lot. And it felt so freaking good. Right. Like of course by the end of the week I was like, All right, I'm ready for a nap. I'm ready for a little bit of downtime. And I enjoyed some restful days off, right? But like it wasn't the usual panic and stress of like hustling, right?

Because if your journey feels like panic and stress when things are coming to you, I just wanna offer that that is an opportunity to breathe into creating more space and capacity to receive what you do want. And so that actually does, I think, tie into what we're gonna talk about today on this episode. But I just wanna share that. Like I totally get it and I'm like living through it and I know the experience that you can have can be drastically different.

So I want you to listen to this episode and notice if any of these things are happening for you. I'm gonna tell you how to approach them a little bit differently and just know that this is the outcome. The way that I'm moving through my career is the outcome of coaching and managing my mind and being able to look at where am I letting my energy leak and where am I being really clear and contained and supportive of myself in ways that are useful and just like really full of love and compassion.

So let's jump in to the five things that I see most performers wasting their energy on.

Okay. And I'm like, do I wanna go from five to one or one to five? I don't think it really matters either way. You're gonna get all five. So let's start with number one. I see a lot of performers wasting time and energy thinking about the fact that they're not ready yet, and this can show up in a few different ways.

It can look like I'm not ready for this job, or I'm not ready for this audition, or I'm not good enough, right? Like any variation of like, I'm not ready. I don't have the skills, I don't have the talent. I don't have the training. Feeling like they're unprepared and they're gonna show up not ready. And it's so interesting when we're having the thought, I'm not ready yet, it immediately creates this lack of trust, this uncertainty, this like sort of like, oh, like tightness, anxiety. Of like, I'm not ready. But what if you were? What if you were ready? What if you were exactly where you were meant to be and you had the exact skill sets that you needed to show up powerfully to whatever opportunity is right in front of you?

Whether it's an audition, a class, like a job, right? But just having the knowledge of, I have everything I need. And I found this was really interesting cause I've just again, been in circumstances with lots of performers and it's just this subtle underlying current of like, am I doing this right? Do I know what I'm doing? Right? Like all of these I think go together. I'm not ready. I don't know what I'm doing. Am I doing it right? Like these all to me are under the same umbrella.

And so you just wanna look at what does it look like to step into, like, of course I know what I'm doing, I know exactly what I'm doing. I can trust that I know what I'm doing enough right now.

I can trust myself to show up powerfully and like rely on the people around me to let me know or to support me or to give me a note if needed. Right? But not going into it with the doubt or the uncertainty as the driver.

The second thing that I see performers wasting their time on is thinking that the industry is oversaturated. And this can show up in a few ways. If the industry is oversaturated, what I find most performers concentrate on is like, I'm not unique enough. There's so many people out there who are just like me. There's nothing special about me, and in order to stand out, I need to make myself different. And so this again goes into this space of thinking that who you are is not enough, that what you have to offer uniquely as you, it's not enough, and you have to find some angle that's outside of who you are.

And the reason this doesn't work is it takes you away from you and you start thinking about how can I make myself different instead of how can I make myself more ME? How can I allow myself to show up more authentically in a way that feels truthful and honest and amazing for me, right?

Instead of trying to solve for like how, how do people perceive me? Like how do I want people to receive me? Let me say that again. Instead of, how do I want people to perceive me? How do I want people to receive me? What is the person, who is the person I wanna be in the industry? Like what allows me to be most myself and when we're trying to solve for how the industry is perceiving us, the other thing is that a lot of times performers are actually the people, actors, singers, and dancers are the ones creating the box. We start thinking like, Oh, this is how everyone wants to view me, and instead we start adding on those layers of limitations to ourselves.

Because when we are thinking this is how people think about me, really that's just our own thoughts, right? Anytime we're having a thought about someone else having a thought about us, that's just us reflecting back our own thoughts. So that's a second thing, thinking that you're not unique enough, the industry is oversaturated. I have to make myself stand out versus really just being true to you. Who do you wanna be and how do you wanna be received? You get to decide. You get to decide right now who you wanna be in the industry, and then people can receive you as that. But it has to start with you and focusing on the fact that the industry is oversaturated just doesn't honestly ever serve you.

Because I think also that leans into my next point is that there's this thought that the industry is super competitive. And to me, I just don't think this is something that's useful. How this might be showing up, the third thing, the idea that we have to be in competition with each other, I don't think this is useful because it creates a lot of compare and despair. It creates a lot of measurement and judgment and a lot of like what I call the measuring stick against yourself and others.

And the reason this doesn't work is like everyone's timelines are different and there's actually super, super abundance in the performing arts industry. Everyone has different goals and different strengths and different desires, and so I think when people are having this idea that you have to compete against each other, I think it just drains you of being willing and able to celebrate others and it just makes it harder, I think, when you are competing with someone and trying to, again, measure up to, well is that person booked? Is that person doing something else? Like, does that increase the chances of me to get this job now? Or how can I be better than that person? Versus like really just seeing that there's enough for us all to go around.

I think the idea of the competition goes back to sort of fueling ourselves from not good enough and needing to sort of fuel ourselves from shame or from a place of lack or scarcity versus again, being willing to see that the industry is abundant. There are lots of opportunities and the perfect opportunities for you are never gonna pass you by.

So that's what I would offer, is that the idea of competition instead can look like this industry can be supportive. It doesn't have to be 'me or them', but it can just be an us. Like we can all have our moment to shine. We can all think we're brilliant without needing to be better than, or comparing ourselves to other, or again, like creating this measurement has us feeling better or worse than others. It just doesn't ever end up serving you  as a performer when again, it's like I need to be better than them. What if we remove the competition piece all together? And it's just like, yeah, we all get to thrive, and it still doesn't take away from the opportunities or your individual strengths or you even like thriving to be your best self, right? I just don't think it has to come from competition as the source.

Okay. Number four. I think another big mistake that I see performers making in their careers is thinking that they have to prolong their lives. And again, I've just heard this come up in conversation a lot, like the idea that if you're in the grind now, it's like your life is off in the future. It's like this is some kind of temporary existence until you decide your performing career is over. And what I wanna offer is that whatever you desire, you can just do it now, right? Like you can give yourself permission to lean into the desires that you have now.

I think that this also leans into this sort of idea that you can't have the life you want while you're performing, and that it perpetuates this idea that performing is unstable and performing is unpredictable, and that when you choose this career path, you can't plant roots or you can't start things or you can't, again, like live the life you wanna live. And I, I think that the reason this doesn't work is because it always has you creating a relationship to your performing career that's incongruent. It's like placing your performing career in this state of being an air quote, burden or inconvenience or a delay to your" actual life."

And I just see this happen so freaking much. And what if that just wasn't true? What if you could have whatever you're desiring for your career and your life now while having the career you desire, right? Like what does it look like to give yourself full permission to see that anything you wanna have can coexist, can be co-created, right? Like it doesn't have to be one or the other, black or white one thing or the other. Like it just can be whatever you want it to be.

And I think another reason why this happens often, is because performers have this idea that if you're not all in on your performing career, if you're not all in and fully air quote available, then you won't be able to solve for it, right?

Like if for some reason you gave your energy and focus to something else outside of performing, you'd have less to give your performing arts career. And what I'll just say is that, especially as I'm navigating my business and being a performer, what I keep seeing is that my capacity to have everything I want in the way I want it, continues to grow.

It's not the other way around. My opportunities and possibilities don't shrink. As I step into believing, I can have more and more and more. I just expand my capacity to hold more. And then my life gets to look like whatever I want in my personal life and my professional. They're not separate. I'm not multiple different people. I'm one person having the life experience that I desire. And so what would it look like to give yourself permission to live and own whatever dreams you are fantasizing about now and like believing you can have it all now?

And then the last thing, the number five thing that I think is on the top list of things that people are, you know, spending time and like really wasting energy on is like trying to solve for what comes next. I think it's so fascinating because most people look towards the past to figure out what's coming next instead of opening up to the possibility of anything you want. Right. And like when you're in that sort of solving for what comes next, energy, there's a lot of energy that gets wasted in decision making.

I find that a lot of performers make decisions from money. This is gonna sound silly, but like what is, like, what's the cheapest way to do this? Or like what makes the most sense? Like how can I preserve what I have? Or like, is this the right thing? Like, I just think the decision making of like, am I going the right way in my career? Is this the right thing? The fear of committing to a decision and trying to solve for what comes next is just a lot of back and forth energy and a lack of sort of commitment to deciding what you want to be the right choice versus trying to predict what choice is gonna get you from point A to point B to point C to point Z, right?

Like we try to like logic out how our careers are gonna go versus really trusting the universe and allowing ourselves to know, we're on the freaking path. The path is being laid, and you can't get it wrong when you're trusting yourself, and it's like going all in with a decision. The leaky energy comes in when there's like the back and forth of like, Oh, I don't know if this is the right decision, so I'm gonna straddle these two things and not choose.

And I wanna be clear that sometimes not choosing is okay. I think this also shows up when it's like, Okay, well if I wanna go X, Y, Z in my career, I'm supposed to know exactly how to brand myself, and I have to decide what my path is, or what my title is, or how I'm gonna label myself. Or again, like I think it goes back into like I have to fit myself into like this perfectly packaged box, but then it's feeling like all the energy is being wasted on the decision of like, what am I gonna call myself? What's the right thing to commit to, versus like, What if I just expand and give myself permission to do anything and everything that I want?

And I know this goes against some schools of thought, but this is what I see works for people. It's just way less energy when you're trusting that you will get everything you desire and there's no wrong choice. When you're honoring what feels true to you, it doesn't matter if you call yourself a musical theater dancer or a jazz dancer or an actor before a singer or like whatever labels, right? We're trying to put on ourselves... I just think that when you trust that there's no right or wrong. And you give yourself permission to love whatever decision you make and get on board with those decisions. You can avoid the energy leak of fearing that you've made the wrong choice, or that somehow your career's gonna end up in the wrong place because of one decision.

That's just not how it works. And like, again, the universe is on your side and the universe wants everything that you want. And like, it's all being co-created with you BY you. And so when we're not again fearing, there just gets to be so much more self-trust and ease in the process of creation. And so those are the top five things. And I'm curious, how many of them are you doing right now?

And whether it was one or all five of them, it's totally not a problem. But I hope, that from this episode, you'll realize and just be more aware of when you are spinning in those things, and you'll give yourself permission to zoom out, witness them, and give yourself the opportunity to come back to knowing that you're freaking right here. You're exactly where you need to be, and you can trust in everything that's coming next.

And if you're like, Wait, what the fuck, Kelli, you just blew my mind. These are all things I'm doing and I'm not quite sure what to do next. The next step is to book a call. Go to kelliyoungmanwellness.com/launch and schedule a Launch Call. Within an hour, we can talk about where you're getting stuck and I can show you exactly step by step by step how to move out of doing these things habitually. Cause a lot of the times it's not like a problem that it's happening, it's just the most practiced state of being and it's the most practiced way of thinking and relating to your career, but it doesn't have to be.

You get to create anything you freaking want. We can get started now. So again, go to kelliyoungmanwellness.com/launch and let's move you into a new paradigm for your career. It gets to be light, it gets to be fun. You get to create auditions and opportunities from aligning with your energy and your thoughts and your belief, rather than trying to muscle through and be air quote positive about things that don't feel good. That's not what we're doing.

We're giving you an opportunity to feel better from creating a new relationship with yourself, your career, and your self concept. We don't have to normalize feeling unsatisfied in our careers as performers or just like generally feeling not great about the life and how it feels to be living as a dancer, singer, or actor. Like that just doesn't have to be the norm. And so we're raising the bar for how it feels in the performing arts industry. You ready? Let's freaking go. All right, I'll meet you back here for another episode.

I hope you enjoyed today's episode, and if you did, make sure to share it with a friend who is also an actor, singer, or dancer. You can also help spread the word by leaving us a review wherever you listen to podcasts in order to help people find this resource.

Lastly, you can find me on Instagram @kelliyoungmanwellness, and if you're interested in coaching, make sure to head to kelliyoungmanwellness.com/launch to join my list now. See you soon.