Since I started becoming more vocal about my life coaching practice as well as my niche, I’ve heard from a few people who have similar stories. None stuck me more, though, than the email I got from fellow life coach Kristen Beireis. While Kristen is a life coach who works with other life coaches, she and I seemed to have lead the same life once upon a time:
I wanna grow up & be an actress? Check.
NYC will be where it’ll all happen? Check.
I’m sick of pounding the pavement & I want something else for myself? Check.
I don’t want to be stuck in some cubicle for the rest of my life, but instead I want to find something (else) I can be passionate about? Check.
While Kristen decided to move back home after coming to those above-mentioned realizations & I stayed in NYC, the end result is the same. We stopped pounding (our head on) the pavement, discovered life coaching, and are keeping the acting “thing” in our life out of love & passion - not necessity. Kristen performed this weekend for the first time in 3 years (Congrats Kristen!).
With the emails we exchanged, I relived that heartache that I went through while letting go of my lifelong dream. I told Kristen that I felt we were “kindred spirits”, a term that’s so hippy-dippy I cringed in using it, but couldn’t find another accurate phrase to verbalize how I felt. It reignited why I’m here, at When I Grow Up, looking to work with creative types that are going through that same sense of loss, and heartbreak, and grief as both Kristen & I did.
To go down a creative path, and try to make it both soul-fulfilling and financially successful, takes heart, and effort, blood, sweat, and tears. Getting into a top school, like I did, makes you think you got The Golden Ticket. The acceptance letter came from NYU - early acceptance, in December - and it was reassurance and confirmation. “Yes, you are good enough. Yes, this will be your life. Yes, you belong here. Yes, this will happen for you.”
And then it’s doesn’t. OK, maybe it does to a point. You get great reviews, you land a manager, you get a callback for an under-5 on Law & Order….and then you hear “You’re so unique, you’re so different from anyone else we’ve seen - and we don’t know what to do with you” or “You’re such an incredible character actress. You’ll be working all the time when you hit 40!” And the jobs that roll in are ones far, far away (and for far, far less than a livable wage) from the life you created for yourself - the city you love, the friends you love, the family you love. And, eventually, the man you love. And you don’t want to leave. And you don’t want to audition. And you want some security in your old age, and not to have to wipe out your savings (should you have any) to see a doctor every time you have a cold.
You take this truth and carry it around with you for many, many months - because how can you speak it aloud? How can you admit it to yourself? How can you willingly lose that part of your identity? How can you take that dream that’s been yours for 20 years and say, “No thank you. You’re not needed here. This is your eviction notice.” What else would you do with yourself, for the rest of your life, that would wake you up in the morning with a reason to get out of bed before the sun rises (like an audition can, because if you arrive too late you may not be seen)? And where will that BFA in musical theater get you now?
So you take that with you until it becomes too much to bear. Until you stop going to the auditions and stop updating your website and stop sending out your quarterly mailings and until you….stop. And finally tell your reflection in the mirror, after taking a deep breath: “I’m done.” You might pause for a bit and add, “For now.” Or not. And then you tell others, all the while thinking of what your mother told you years ago when getting a gig was especially hard, “You don’t have to do this. Nobody will be disappointed in you.”
With all your resolve and all of your hope, you enroll in a career change workshop and will Your Perfect Career to fall from the sky and bonk you on the head. And while that doesn’t happen in a literal sense, it does in a figurative one, and the clouds part and the birds sing and you stop grieving for just a moment.
For me, that choir sang “Life Coach.” For you, it might sing, “Voice Teacher” or “Real Estate Agent” or “Bar Owner.” And you’ll keep a little bit of your life still open for your passion - your performing, or your drawing, or your writing - but this time you’ll do it on your own terms, solely for the love of it. Not for the reviews, or the connections the Director has, or to give a postcard to the agents you meet. You do it purely because you want to, because it makes you happy.
I wish I could help make all of you happy, and give you the life you want and deserve on your own terms. A life that’s OK to have, even if it’s not the life you thought you’d lead. Everyone deserves that chance.
