7 Ways Performers Overcome Rejection

There will inevitably be mistakes that happen in live theatre, and the pressure to outshine and outdo others can be overwhelming in the West End. Sometimes, the performing arts can be a culture where we have to battle negative self-image and unhealthy attitudes.

When I first started out in my training as a pre-professional performer I had low self-esteem and I exercised self-limiting behaviours such giving up, and escapism, because of low self-esteem. As performers, we often attach our sense of self-esteem to our performance. We often feel out of control of our success or failure because of the negative judgements of others and...REJECTION. The industry is tough, and if you want to be a success in your training and on stage, you have to develop successful habits and a healthy mindset.

Eventually, I had to learn ways to improve my esteem and build the strength to grow into a confident performer. With a GROWTH MINDSET, you perceive challenges as a natural part of the learning process. You grow beyond rejection and overcome personal challenges to continue toward the pursuit of your goals. You develop RESILIENCE. Everyone wants to perform well, but if you focus only on performance results you become afraid to take the necessary risks to grow as an artist.

Set goals for learning (not just for performance success). This can help you to release the need to be perfect in audition and rehearsal situations.

Examples include:

• Experimenting with new types of acting, singing, and dancing techniques.

• Acting, singing and dancing in new and unusual ways that are different from what you normally experience

• Taking the risk to accept different types of performing opportunities even if you are not entirely sure you can meet the challenge

• Seeking the help of mentors, coaches, or others you admire in the business, and asking them questions and advice even if it may seem ‘absurd’ or ‘stupid’

• Looking to work on material that pushes you instead of keeping safe in your comfort zone

Develop a growth mindset as you work toward your learning goals!!!

1. Create a belief in yourself

Self-confidence is crucial because you need to have a future vision for yourself while overcoming challenges, and motivating yourself to continue toward your goals after rejection.

2. Seeing failure as an opportunity for growth and learning from your mistakes.

You must accept that failure is inevitable. Mistakes and failures are part of the journey toward success. The kind of growth that is necessary for success in the performing arts industry means that our mistakes are also exposed for others to see. Accept that when you are operating outside of your comfort zone you may feel like a failure. It's ok. Forgive your mistakes. Accept them, learn from them, and move on.

3. Grow your self-awareness through feedback from coaches, mentors or friends.

Seeking feedback from mentors, coaches, or a small group of trusted friends is crucial for your personal development. These mentors will encourage you to set goals and show you blind spots, or negative behaviours and patterns of thinking that may be getting in the way of your success.

4. Develop your curiosity and commit to lifelong learning.

Curiosity is an emotion that is the striving force for human development. The commitment to lifelong learning and curiosity will increase our motivation toward success. This striving force is the desire to acquire more of something new and then to use that in the future to bring deeper happiness and contentment.

5. Prepare for and welcome challenges and obstacles.

When you can imagine the obstacles and challenges that may occur, before they do, you will be less affected by them. You’ll also brainstorm ways to deal with them when they arise. This helps your ability to innovate ways of problem-solving and decision making.

6. Develop a passion and purpose for your dreams and apply them in performance, rehearsals, and practice.

“The indispensable first step to getting the things you want out of this life is this: Decide what you want.” – Ben Stein

Create a sense of purpose toward your career by developing a mission statement or a reason that you are committed to your success. Have a sense of hope and optimism for the future, because your success is possible. What are the core objectives that guide your life and career? Write them down and reread them when you feel like you lose your will.

7. Be persistent. Have Tenacity

You will encounter obstacles that will test your self-belief and ability to be persistent. The path toward your success will not always feel pleasurable. Sometimes patience and a stoic approach is the only way forward. Just showing up to do the work even when you do not want to is crucial to your success.

Here is a Surprise Bonus Tip For You:

Inspiration through being inspired and being an inspiration

Become a leader by copying the successful behaviours of the people you look up to! Begin to study the successful traits and capabilities of those performers who are leaders in this industry that you admire. You can use that knowledge and attempt to assimilate it into your professional identity to propel your success. Become the star you were destined to be by assessing the leadership success and actions of other high performers.

I've grown so much in my personal and professional life by mirroring the "star" like qualities of my mentors and the leaders I look up to.

Master your mindset and succeed in the performing arts!

Hey, if you like this blog, like it, share it, and post a pic to and hashtag #brandonleesears #musicaltheatremindset

Hey, if you like this blog, like it, share it, and post a pic to and hashtag #brandonleesears#musicaltheatremindset

Transcription of 7 Ways to Overcome Rejection Video:

Hey, everybody!

Brandon Lee Sears here with you

giving you tips tools and strategies

on how to tap into your potential

for peak performance and exceptional success.

We are learning how to master that musical theater mindset.

And today I want to talk to you a little bit

about overcoming rejection.

There will inevitably be mistakes

failures that happen in musical theater… in live performance,

and as performers , we need to develop the mindset

and the ability

to overcome these failures on the path toward our goals.

As performers we have to develop the resilience

the ability to overcome those obstacles

when they happen and be able to still maintain the amount of

self-confidence that is necessary to perform.

Have you ever been in a dance class

and perform horribly and felt

so much anxiety and shame

and guilt and sadness from that perceived failure

that you felt like you couldn’t go on,

or you felt like you didn't know

how to get beyond those feelings.

Perhaps you've been in an audition

and you didn't get the result that you would have liked.

You didn't go far enough

or you got cut from an audition

and the perpetuating self-doubt from

not doing well overcame you and you felt overwhelmed.

Maybe you're sitting now when you're not able to perform

or to act or to sing or dance

the way that you would like to be dancing right now,

perhaps you feel doubtful of yourself

and you just really don't know how to deal

with the feelings that you're having up in

there to a lot of it has to do with overcoming rejection.

In my own career as a professional performer.

I suffered from self-limiting beliefs.

I suffered from self-doubt.

I suffered from not having within me the knowledge

or the resources around me to really understand

what was going on

whenever I was practicing these bad behaviors.

Sometimes I lacked the self-confidence

to fully commit to my pre-professional growth

and I didn't know what behaviors and habits were getting in my way.

There was a blind spot.

I exercised horrible self-limiting behaviors like, truancy, giving up, self-sabotage, escapism and addiction

because of all the disempowering beliefs that I had inside.

As performers, we often attach our sense of self confidence to

what we do on the outside

to our performance to our ability to sing

to our ability to dance to our ability to act well

and when we don't feel like we're doing these things well…

when we dont’t feel like we're performing well,

we often attach that those feelings to our identity to ourselves.

I understand what it is to feel doubtful.

I understand what it is to feel to feel sad.

I understand what it is to feel like a failure

because of these self-limiting beliefs.

When you can move beyond rejection to overcome personal

challenges to continue toward the pursuit of our

musical theater goals, we develop resilience.

A lot of the things that we perceive

as failures are not failures at all,

but they're necessary steps

to grow in order to achieve our goals.

The best learning programs set stretch goals.

Huge, massive goals, with a gap

between where we currently are to where we want to be

so that you're tripping and failing and falling

on your way up to reaching that goal.

It's called growth

It’s how you become a master at anything that you do.

Everyone wants to perform well,

but if we focus only on performance results,

we become afraid to take the necessary risks

that we need to take in order to grow as an artiste.

We need to set goals not only for performance,

but we have to set goals for learning as well.

When we set learning goals, we release the need to be perfect

in situations such as auditions, on-stage, and in rehearsals.

We stop perceiving new situations as threats,

and instead we feel comfortable in these challenging situations to take risks

to make bold choices

to go where no man has gone before

That's called creativity.

In a series of astonishing experiments,

Stanford psychologist, Carol Dweck showed us that

when we're concerned about how we appear to others

it inhibits our ability to perform well in new situations and unfamiliar territory.

This well respected theory of motivation is called a growth-mindset.

Now this motivation theory is based on developing the belief that we can achieve our tasks and goals

that we can work towards success in life

work, work ,work,

With a growth mindset, you perceive challenge as a natural part of the learning process.

Now, you can develop a growth mindset by experimenting with new types of acting, singing, or dancing techniques

acting, singing, and dancing in new and unusual ways

that are different from what you normally experience.

By taking the risk to accept and to feel different and new types of performing,

you can look to work on material that pushes you,

instead of keeping safe in your comfort zone.

When you begin to develop a growth mindset,

you will understand that every environment is an opportunity for growth.

Success in the effort…

in the work…

How to develop your growth mindset?

One. You have to start learning how to create a belief in yourself.

We have to take the responsibility of creating this belief.

We can develop this belief that our self by reaching goals

and setting benchmarks as we reach those goals

so that once we reach the benchmark… when we reach this progressive goal,

we get a sense of feeling of achievement

and then in turn our bodies release endorphins

and adrenaline because we're excited

because we've achieved a goal. You can create a belief in yourself by reading

and studying mentors and people who will tell you the exact same thing

I'm telling you now. Anyone who's ever grown

and made a difference or an impact of the world - read their autobiography

and most of them will say what I'm doing,

what I've learned is possible

for anybody with enough work and with enough effort.

If you want to be like someone, read all about them.

Imitate what they're doing. Learn about them .

Absorb that, and begin to study the successful traits,

and capabilities of those performers that you admire.

You can use that knowledge

and attempt to assimilate it into your own practice

into your own professional identity to improve your chances of success

and you can create a belief in yourself by reading them

by deciding and being in charge of what you're putting in here

in here and through here

your associations your friends

what you're listening to, what you're seeing

what you're allowing to go and infiltrate into your being

through your senses overwhelming your senses with an

amazing astonishing sometimes irrational belief in yourself

is so helpful in achieving and reaching your goals

Two. Seeing failure as an opportunity.

You have to accept that failure is Inevitable

mistakes and failures are a part of the journey towards success

the kind of growth that is necessary

for success in the Performing Arts industry

means that our mistakes are also exposed for everyone to see

We have to accept that when were operating out of our comfort zone,

we may feel like a failure. It's okay. Forgive your mistakes.

Accept them. Learn from them.

Grow from them.

Move on, and learn to love everything you can about yourself

because failure is a necessary step on the way to reaching

and achieving your goals, and the future vision

that you have for your life.

Three, Three, Three.

Cultivate self awareness through feedback.

Get feedback, Get feedback.

Find, seek, and get feedback from everyone and anyone,

you know, who will listen to you sing , act, or dance.

Seeking feedback from mentors coaches

or a small group of trusted friends

is crucial for your personal development.

These mentors will encourage you to grow more.

They'll give you feedback.

They'll encourage you to look at things

in a new way that you've never seen before

these mentors will encourage you to set goals

and show you blind spots

that you may not have been aware of

or negative behaviors and patterns of thinking

that are getting in your way

and may be getting in your way on your road to success

Four.

Develop curiosity and a commitment to life long learning

Learn to know how you learn

and learn to love learning.

This is how humans evolved

our curiosity for learning

our curiosity to grow

our ability to look ahead in the future

and create something now

that will benefit ourselves in the future

is why humans have evolved so well

create a commitment to lifelong learning

and you have to prepare for and welcome obstacles

Think to yourself…

What's something that can get in my way

What’s something that is a stumbling block

on my way to success

When you can imagine the obstacles and challenges

that may occur before they do

you won't be so emotionally deflated when they do

This helps your ability to problem-solve and make decisions

in innovative ways

to attack and to overcome

or to move past the challenges in your life.

Six. Develop a passion for your work”

” The indispensable first step to getting anything you want

out of this life, is to decide what you want. {Ben Stein}

You’ve got to create a sense of purpose

toward your musical theatre career.

You've got to figure out your “why”

You've got to develop a mission statement

or a reason that you're so committed to your growth no matter what

When I first moved here,

I was l auditioning constantly.

No, no, no. No, I have no money.

But I decided that I would not be defeated.

I had a deep inner drive

and by developing a sense of hope and optimism,

you'll begin to believe that your success is possible.

What are the core values the core objectives that guide your life and career?

Write those down.

Get pumped up.

Feel emotional about it.

Write them down, and reread them.

And when you feel like you're going to lose,

fill yourself up with emotional confidence

And the kind of emotion, the kind of emotion

that gets you geared towards success.

Tenacity. Tenacity is perseverance.

It's grit.

It's the ability to keep moving on.

You're gonna encounter obstacles that will test your self belief

and ability to be persistent.

The path toward your success

will not always feel pleasurable

Sometimes patients and a stoic approach

is the only way forward.

Just showing up to do the work

even when you do not want to is crucial toward your success.