The Journey EVERY Actor Must Take

Following on from yesterday’s blog about why we do what we do (the experience of the flow state), today I’m exploring how the journey to achieving Flow as a professional performer parallels the journey of the actor in training.

On the development of the actor’s awareness, Constantin Stanislavski, father of modern acting, once said:

“Make the difficult habitual, the habitual easy, and the easy beautiful.”

Stanislavski’s quote fits with the stages of competence:

Incompetence (Unconscious and then Conscious) is overcome by practising in a mechanical fashion until a level of automaticity is achieved. This process is making the difficult habitual. Unconscious incompetence is usually where the skill is still fun, we are not experiencing Flow, we are blissfully unaware.  The journey seems simple. Testing someone’s abilities at this stage will result in failure, but the participant probably won’t care because they haven’t developed an awareness of what is right and what is wrong yet. However, while they are unconsciously incompetence, they often receive a respite from self-consciousness and self conscious self-talk.

Conscious incompetence marks a period of deliberate practise (a learning cycle of trying, failing, evaluating and trying again) is necessary to develop these skills to competence. Failure is an essential part of that cycle as skills developing are still unequal to the challenge, and becoming consciously aware of their failings allows actors to adjust their behaviour to improve skills. This stage is most aptly described by Samuel Beckett as: “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.”

This is often the longest, most painful and fatiguing part of skill development. Self-consciousness sets in because actors are aware of their incompetencies. This is when people quit. I call it Death Valley. The journey that looked initially easy, is now asking more than most are willing to give.

Testing someone’s abilities at this stage will commonly cause them to practise failure. We are still moving from difficult to habitual at this stage. 

Conscious competence requires conscious effort and involvement in executing the skill, is the process of making the habitual easy. By easy, we mean, done with a sense of ease, there is decreased mental and physical tension and self-conscious begins to disappear. Some worries over failure still exist as action and awareness begin to merge. The aim is to spend less time being aware of one’s actions and more time immersed in the activity. The balance between the challenge set and the skills employed is beginning to balance. Testing someone at this stage will have about equal success and failure.

Unconscious competence meets the criteria for Flow.

• There are clear goals every step of the way. 

• There is immediate feedback to one’s actions 

• There is a balance between challenges and skills.

• Action and awareness are merged.

• Distractions are excluded from consciousness.

• There is no worry of failure.

• Self-consciousness disappears.

• The sense of time becomes distorted.

• The activity becomes an end in itself.

Testing someone at this stage will commonly result in bringing the performer into their element. Flow is the zone in which the actor does their best work. Someone in the state of Flow will rise to the challenge. 

The journey is a tough one, but for those that reach Unconscious Competence, a career spent performing in the state of Flow is the prize.