Developing a Mindset for Acting Success

Recently, I’ve been writing about what leading psychologist Carol Dweck calls the Fixed and Growth Mindsets. Developing the right mindset is vital for an actor to grow and succeed.

If you have a growth mindset, you believe that positive change and advancement is always possible. You have a ‘Succeed or Learn’ mindset, there is no situation which results in failure, because if you don’t succeed, you get to learn something significant. It doesn’t stop it hurting, but you seek out the chance to grow.  Your experience reinforces that mindset.

Unfortunately, if you have a fixed mindset, you have conditioned yourself to avoid damage to your self-image and how others see you – at all costs. You will not put yourself in a situation where the result may look badly for you. If you do, you react strongly, and attention is deflected away from you. When you meet a challenge or obstacle, you approach it in a way that will do the least potential damage. Little or no growth comes of it. Your experience reinforces that mindset.

Our mindset is made up of a set of inner narratives or stories we tell ourselves. It is possible to change them. But how?   Success has moments of failure built in. Every single successful person has the most tremendous failure stories. Actors with a Growth Mindset are inspired by that fact. Actors with a Fixed Mindset are telling themselves a very different story.

LEARN TO HEAR THE STORY YOU’RE TELLING YOURSELF

HOW THE FIXED MINDSET RESPONDS TO CHALLENGES: Whenever a challenge arises, listen to your inner narrative. What does it say when a challenge arises? It may speak very quietly. It thinks that it’s protecting you. It tells you a story about the potential negative outcomes of the challenge. You are asked to prepare for an audition in which you will need to sob. Your experience tells you that you find challenges like that very difficult. You’re going to need to practise this to nail the job. You tell yourself some stories.

“I’m not the kind of actor that can cry on cue.”

“I’m not an emotional person, I’ve never been good at that kind of thing.”

“Acting isn’t just about being able to cry on cue, how can they expect that of me?

“Oh God, talented actors can do this, why can’t I?”

“Really good actors can cry on cue, I’m clearly not a good actor if I can’t”

These thoughts have immense power over us. As we approach the date of the audition, we put off practising, our self-image doesn’t want to be confronted with the failure it associates with the challenges.

So we tell ourselves something like: “If I go in there and don’t cry, I’ll look ridiculous and they won’t see what I can really DO! If I send an email now, I won’t have to go. I can still get out of this. My agent would understand. I wouldn’t be right for this part anyway, not if I have to spontaneously sob, who can do that? I bet SO and SO can cry. I’ve tried it, it doesn’t work for me, the tears never come. If I go to this audition, I’ll just be showing them that. Why would I do that? I want them to think I’m good, another role might come up in that show, I’ll stay home and practise my sight reading.”

AND WE AVOID THE CHANCE TO GROW BY AVOIDING THE CHALLENGE. 

HOW THE FIXED MINDSET RESPONDS TO OBSTACLES:  Whenever an obstacle presents itself, listen to your inner narrative. What does it say when you meet obstacles? Your show gets a bad review in the newspaper. “See, I told my agent that I couldn’t do Shakespeare. And here’s the proof!” “Oh well done, now the world knows that you can’t do an American accent.” “Only the best get into drama school, I didn’t get into drama school – I knew I shouldn’t have applied.” 

AND WE AVOID THE CHANCE TO GROW BY AVOIDING THE OBSTACLE.

HOW THE FIXED MINDSET RESPONDS TO FEEDBACK:  Whenever feedback is offered, listen to your inner narrative. How does it respond? “If they understood my reasons, they wouldn’t be saying this. Let me just explain…” “Jeez, they haven’t got a clue what you’re talking about… Just because you’ve directed a play, what do they know about acting?” “They’ve given me that note three times already, I must be an idiot.” “No, that won’t work. They keep giving me that note, but it won’t work.”

AND WE AVOID THE CHANCE TO GROW BY AVOIDING THE FEEDBACK. 

ACKNOWLEDGE THAT YOU HAVE A CHOICE

You cannot change what happens to you. But your personal interpreter can be trained to respond.

It is currently set to respond in the way that your mindset dictates. You can choose HOW you respond to challenges, obstacles and feedback. You can train yourself to STOP. Listen to the fixed mindset story. And CHOOSE to answer back with your GROWTH MINDSET.

FIXED: “Really good actors can cry on cue, I’m clearly not a good actor if I can’t” 

GROWTH: “I can understand why you might feel like that, but perhaps I could learn to cry like that  A good actor would learn how to do it.

FIXED: “Only the best get into drama school, I didn’t get into drama school – I knew I shouldn’t have applied.” 

GROWTH: “I didn’t get in this time,  it took Dustin Hoffman 9 attempts to get into the Actors Studio. How could I improve my chances next time? If I really want to go to drama school, I’ll keep trying until I get in or my priorities change. I know loads of people that took, 3, 4, 5 attempts. 

FIXED: “No, that won’t work. They keep giving me that note, but it won’t work.”

GROWTH: I don’t think that will work, but I think I should give it a try, what’s the worse that can happen? Either it will work, or we’ll find out that this way doesn’t work and come up with something else, but we won’t know unless I really give it a go. 

When you mindfully practise this enough, you’ll turn the choice to engage a growth mindset will become a habit. But start by listening to the stories you are telling yourself. Perhaps you’ve told yourself a story about this blog post already. How would the growth mindset answer that?