How to Become an Actor: The Story of Hannah

There once was a young girl named Hannah who wanted great success in her life. Hannah's parents had taught her that she could one day grow up to become whatever she wanted.

What was her goal? She wanted to be a professional actress, and hoped that one day she might be able to perform in big budget feature films and on Broadway.

As she grew up, she picked the perfect college for her acting career and studied as much as she could. She worked on her career every day, performing in shows and student films.

She was what anyone would call a highly driven, hardworking young adult. She was always grateful that although her parents gave her a lot, they also instilled a strong work ethic and sense of responsibility in her. She didn't have too many friends because she preferred to work on her career instead of going out with them.

Upon graduating college, she began performing in small independent film and theater productions. She spent all her free time submitting to roles online and posting on Instagram to build up a following.

After two years, she turned 24. She had over 2,000 social media followers and a number of independent credits on her resume, but she felt stuck.

It seemed impossible. Between her full-time job, acting and auditioning during her free time, and her nighttime job of building her social following and responding to audition notices, she felt overwhelmed. She was tired, run-down, and confused.

Another year passed... And then another.

Still stuck, Hannah was on the verge of giving up at age 26. All her friends and family thought she would be a big success by 25, and she'd just missed that goal!

She looked back on her life sadly and wondered, "Why is it that even though I worked so much harder than my college friends, I'm still just as stuck as they are?"

Upon asking this question, she remembered an Einstein quote she'd heard a while back:

"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results."

Hannah suddenly realized that for the past 8 years, she'd been spending all her time working like crazy to move her career forward, but that most of the things she was doing weren't really actually helping her much at all!

Her social media following was still not where she wanted it, going to countless auditions was a huge time suck since she didn't book that many, and because she was so stressed, she could tell it was impacting her acting.

Did she give up on acting? Or did she change her ways? Was she able to surmount the big fear of completely trying a new approach in hopes it might work?

I'll tell you the ending to this story in my next post.