Ep 22: How to Evaluate Anything

In this episode, I'm gonna be sharing a simple three step evaluation process that you can use on literally anything, and it's gonna help you to gain more awareness of the things that are happening and how you can make effective and useful changes for the future. 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 in 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 22 of the Love Your Life as a Performer Podcast. Today I wanted to share a simple evaluation process that you can use on literally anything. And this was actually something that I learned from one of my coaches, Stacey Boehman. She teaches a very simple evaluation process of what worked, what didn't work, and what do I wanna do differently?

And I know this might sound simple, but I wanna teach you how you can start applying this to auditions, self tapes, callbacks, the way you show up and take class, the way you move through the week. Like literally anything this can be used for. For me personally, I'm using it right now as I'm evaluating a launch that I just went through when I was doing the Paradigm for the first time. And I think that throughout the past year of doing these evaluations on myself and my business and my career, it really has become such a useful tool of really looking at where I am now and where I wanna go.

I think a lot of times people avoid spending the time to do these kinds of evaluations, mostly because they're avoiding the feeling of failure or inadequacy or disappointment. Or like just not realizing that the information is neutral and valuable. So that's what I really would love for you to all start to consider is that the results that you're getting are not good, bad, right or wrong, and you can take that information and use it for you, for you to learn and grow and to really find the lesson and the appreciation from what has occurred, right? When you're not making your results, whether it's not getting a job or not getting a call back, or not making enough money.

Right, like if you're not using that information as like something bad about you or some shortcoming of your own in a way that detracts from your self worth or your value as a human. Or literally anything, then the information truly gets to be something that propels you forward and something that you use to your advantage.

And so when you start doing these evaluations, it really just opens your brain up to new possibilities and it also helps you start developing your self trust and really looking at what your ideas are, what do you think the solution is versus sort of delegating and crowdsourcing and getting everyone else's input about how to solve your specific circumstance, right?

I think that these evaluations make you more resourceful. Again, it allows you to take full responsibility for you. And so the magic of these evaluations, what worked, what didn't work? What do you wanna do differently? Is that when you're doing them, you really want them to be in the stance of what is in your control.

And we always start with what worked first, because that helps put your brain in the space of positive bias, right? Like it allows your brain to find the things that went well, to invite in the celebration and to see the benefit of what occurred. Because we all know that it's very easy for our brains to find all of the problems and go into problem solving mode and fixing mode, and like get into the energy of like nothing is working. This is terrible. But there's always something that is working. And when you give yourself the opportunity to find those things and celebrate, and even if it means like just acknowledging the fact that you showed up, right? Like all of that is super valuable.

So I'm gonna talk you through an evaluation of an audition, just as an example. Okay, so if I was looking at what worked, I might say, okay, what worked was that, I woke up on time. I gave myself ample time to get to Pearl Studios, and I felt really good about fueling my body before I got there, I was conscious about warming up. I was intentional about, you know, having my materials ready, printing my headshot and my resume and you know, that was all good to go. For me personally, I love when I pack my bag at night so that I don't have to think about it in in the morning. So my bag was packed. And I chose my outfit ahead of time based on what made me feel amazing, and I committed to that decision. So I didn't bring like 50 different outfits and like try to change in the bathroom based on what everyone else was wearing. I really committed to what felt good for me. Again, like I showed up on time, I had plenty of space for myself and I gave myself permission to warm up to music that I loved. And yeah, in the room I was really present. I gave myself permission to stand where I needed to stand in order to learn. For some reason, I like standing on the left side of the room more. I feel like I learned quicker on the left. So I like learning on the left side, and then I like switching it up and, you know, standing in different places in groups so I feel comfortable doing the, the choreo in any space, right? But like I gave myself permission to do what I needed to do. I asked questions when I was confused. I also gave myself permission to try to answer as many questions as possible without asking questions. I  was comfortable marking when I felt like I needed to conserve my energy for groups.

And let me see... Clearly I'm doing this evaluation as I'm talking you through right now. But do you see how, like, you could be thinking about so many different elements, but it's really what's in your control, right? I felt like myself. I wasn't trying to be any certain way in the audition room. Like I really showed up just a hundred percent as myself and I allowed myself to have fun. Right? And I probably could think of even more for this specific audition. I want you to see though how that would feel after you're acknowledging literally everything that went amazing about an audition.

And then I'm gonna move on to what didn't work, and I'm gonna do that with love. What didn't work is that I was overthinking some of the counts. So as they were teaching the next section, I was still thinking about the first section in my head that was a little distracting. What didn't work is that when I did the combo full out with feeling for the actual like audition round, I let my adrenaline like be a little big, so I, I kind of like , like whacked my leg around in a way that was like more forceful than it needed to be. Um, what else, what didn't work is that I forgot knee pads, so that's not something I normally, typically need at auditions, but, again, like just something to consider that I can bring those with me and have them in my bag. What didn't work was the fact that, if I'm being a hundred percent honest, I hadn't taken class that week, so I hadn't really moved my body. And going into an audition that was pretty physical and intense, like that didn't really serve me. It didn't work that I hadn't moved my body in a big way. Um, What else?

But this is the thing, right? Do you see how I'm like asking myself What else? What else? What else you wanna go like as in depth as possible? Because you're gonna find so many gold nuggets of things you could implement or do differently the next time, right? Like, I think one other thing that didn't really work was that this specific audition had, um, music and sides that needed to be prepared and even though I had scheduled a voice lesson and I had learned the material and I had done it, if I'm being, again completely honest with myself, I didn't spend as much time rehearsing or preparing those songs. So I think that as I was there and as I was present through the audition, in the back of my mind, I was feeling some resistance about being unprepared if I were to stay or get a call back. Right. So there was some inaction and some ways that I didn't address my thinking about the audition and the preparation that in this specific moment just didn't really work.

So then once you look at what didn't work, you go on to what do I wanna do differently? And you can use some of the information from what didn't work to add on or like to really look at, okay, what worked so well that I wanna implement something even more, right? So what would I wanna do different? I wanna make it a baseline that I take at least one ballet class a week. Cause that's when my body feels like amazing is when I'm taking the vitamins of doing ballet class. Um, what I wanna do differently is make sure that I feel a hundred percent confident about any singing materials given, right? Like that's a hundred percent in my control and I could be super specific about what that looks like. You know, like making sure to run it the day before or making sure to be completely off book as much as possible, right? Like I'm just making this up, but. Those are the kinds of things you can think about. What could I do differently? Oh, I remember my shoes being like really sticky in the room, and I had like put these little stickers on the bottom, like to help create little less friction. Like basically the, the same thing as like putting tape on the bottom of your shoe.

And I think in hindsight I would've brought some of those or even different shoe options into the room. So,  in case my shoes were sticking like I just had another option. So that could be something I could do differently. And honestly, like I feel like sometimes when I'm doing my evaluations, it really just depends on the circumstance. There might be times where you're like, oh, okay. There's not actually that much that I would do differently, and this evaluation is just helping me to see and identify what did really work well so that I can like copy and paste for the next one.

Another thing to keep in mind when you're doing evaluations is you also could be looking at the specific thoughts and feelings that you were having that either worked or didn't work. So for example, like something that I think was a really useful thought was like, I love what I'm doing, right? Like even when it was physical or was hard, I was thinking, I have plenty of time. My body knows what to do. Like I was thinking really useful thoughts that made me feel capable and supported. And I really felt like I had the skills to do this specific combination.

So I was thinking thoughts like this is in my wheelhouse. Like I look great doing this choreo. Like I was thinking thoughts like that, that helped me feel so freaking confident in the room about what I was doing. And so in contrast, if you were thinking thoughts that were not useful, right? Like maybe you would put that in the what didn't work section. Like if you were thinking like, oh my gosh, I look terrible, and you were feeling sort of like discouraged. You could have put that in the what didn't work, right? If you were having a thought like, you know, I'm not right for this show. And it was making you feel defeated before you even started, that would go in the what didn't work.

Like you can also just like identify the thoughts and feelings that are driving some of the actions you're taking. Okay. And then the last thing I wanna say about these evaluations are that truly, when you allow them to be so freaking useful and such a tool for your learning, you give yourself permission to just grow in a way that feels loving and safe and supported, right?

Like you're not doing them to make yourself wrong. They can be a source of celebration and progress and success tracking and truly just like giving you other alternatives and possibilities of things you could do differently and trusting yourself to then implement those actions. So when you do find things on your what you wanna do differently part of the evaluation, right? Maybe that looks like, yeah, I would've loved to be off book way sooner for the songs and the sides so that I just felt prepared going in, right? And I can look at, okay, how can I make that possible and the baseline for all of my auditions. If you're looking at it, even in a class scenario, it's like, okay, maybe what I wanna do different for the next time is set an intention. You could do the same thing for auditions too, right? But it's like, I'm gonna set an intention and I'm gonna be very clear on what I wanna get out of this. I wanna get fun, or I want to be as big as possible and take up as much space, right? Like you can also be specific in the intentions you're setting for the next ones too.

But this is just gonna help you grow so freaking fast and get used to acknowledging everything that's happening without it being good, bad, right or wrong, and without applying a whole second layer of judgment over the results or what was created. And then, I think I already said this, but I do wanna just emphasize that these evaluations are for you and they're about you and your thoughts and the way you showed up, right?

I wanna just make sure I'm saying that this shouldn't be about like, What didn't work was that person stood in front of me and that was so rude and the pianist messed up the whole fricking thing, right? That's not really the most useful way to use evaluations unless you're gonna say, yeah, you know, there was someone that stood in front of me, so next time I can be more responsible for moving to somewhere where I can see clearly, or you. There was not great communication between the pianist and I and there was some misunderstanding. So next time I'm gonna be really clear in the tempo and you know, where I'm starting in my cut and where I'm ending, right?

So like those kinds of things can totally be useful, when you are doing it from the space of what can I be responsible for? Okay, that's what I got for you this week. I wanna let you know that I am gonna be teaching a free class next week, because the year is not over yet, and I'm gonna be teaching a class, a webinar on How to Have the Life, Career, and Money You Want in the Arts.

I'm gonna be teaching this in a way that I've never taught it before in a very simple process that you can apply to literally anything you wanna create in the new year and beyond, so you don't wanna miss it. It's on December 27th, Tuesday at 3:00 PM Eastern time, and the class is gonna be around 90 minutes. I'm gonna teach for about an hour, and then I'm gonna take questions and answer as many as possible in the last 30 minutes. I love encouraging people to come live because I do think that's when you get the most energy out of the call. And if you can't make it and you already know you have a conflict at that time, don't worry.

I am gonna be sending out a replay, so make sure you register in order to receive that. So go to kelliyoungmanwellness.com/register and you can sign up now. I know that if you're listening to this podcast, you are excited about what's coming in the new year, and this is gonna be the perfect way to set up your desires and witness your goals and your big dreams and vision without any limitations.

And we're really gonna be looking at how do you really move towards being who you wanna be, doing the things you wanna do, and having the things that you wanna have. This is your one and only freaking life, and you get to have it all. Whew. Okay, I'm fired up and I do wanna say that this class is gonna feel like a warm freaking hug, so I will see you there. Okay, 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/waitlist to join my list now. See you soon.