Admit it.
You’ve been stuck in the same loop. Feeling like you’re living in Groundhog day, while seeing everyone else grow and hit their milestone goals and celebrating their new achievements for sometime now?
But your own progress? It’s been flat.
How do you hit your next level without falling victim to the same mistakes that sabotage the attempts of many other voiceover artists.
First things first, there’s no one definition of success, which means your ‘next-level’ is defined by you. It has nothing to do with another voiceover artist or your past, or what people tell you. It’s all about you, defining it for yourself and letting go of needing to compare your voiceover (VO) career to another vo talent’s, and then feeling bad about it.
As a matter of fact, it is what’s hindering you from getting yourself to the next stage of your voiceover career.
Your job is to stay focus on you, your goals and only you. Sure, you can take a quick scan to see what others are doing to get a hit of inspiration but refrain from falling into a rabbit hole of comparing.
So to get to your next level without falling victim to the same rookie mistakes that sabotage the attempts of new voiceover artists.
Here are 5 mistakes to avoid to making it a hell lot easier to up-level your voiceover career.
1. You Don’t Have Clarity of Your Vision
Getting to the next level requires you to have a vision, a goal. Think of a GPS. You need to enter a destination to get where you need to go.
Similarly, your vision serves as your destination, it helps to guide you in your actions so that you can take intentional actions that are aligned vs ones that opposes.
2. You Ignore the Power of Social Proof
It’s inevitable, we are influenced by social proof. A phrase coined by Robert Cialdini in his book, Influence.
Our brain consumes about a quarter percent of our daily energy supply. Naturally our brain will try and preserve its energy wanting to be on cruise control, looking to do as much as it can at the unconscious level through developing shortcuts in our thinking.
This way we can make decisions more quickly and more easily. That’s why social proof is so powerful when it comes to referrals, and testimonials, especially unsolicited feedback.
When you get this, you must share it. Don’t act like it’s not big deal. It is a big deal. It’s not boasting or being self-absorbed, it’s ethical marketing.
As you build your portfolio, ask for testimonials. It’s valuable because it not only helps build your credibility, it helps give clients the comfort of knowing other have had a terrific experience working with you and mitigates the risk of giving you the job.
Now that you know the most common mistakes, you can avoid them with ease.
3. You Don’t Believe It’s Possible
It’s natural we all have doubts, and disempowering thoughts about our ability from time to time.
However, don’t let stories take over your thoughts and sabotage your success. When it does, we often slip into our auto-pilot way of being based on decades of old conditioning and disempowering thoughts.
Learn how to become aware of your old thinking (without judgment) and craft the story you need to shift your perspective and elevate your career to the next level and be noticed.
4. You Apologize for Being New
When you have been invited to audition, you apologize for being new.
Here’s the thing, when you provide this information, your planting a subconscious seed in the decision makers’ mind (whether you like it or not) setting the preconceived idea you may not be as skilled, seasoned or dependable to take on the part they’re casting.
So if it comes down to a choice between you and someone more seasoned, they’ll most likely choose the other person.
Thus, it’s important for you to trust the work you have put in so far in getting you to where you are. This includes the practice, the training and also in doing the work of getting clear of your vision and identifying your subconscious stories and letting that go.
Reminder: you wouldn’t be invited to audition, if they didn’t think you have what it takes.
Also, if it’s an opportunity you found yourself give it a go, if it’s something that speaks to you! Too often, we disqualify ourselves instead of letting others disqualify us.
What if, we trust ourselves and audition with gusto and let others decide for themselves.
In the end, even if you didn’t get the part, you did the work, you got to practice your auditioning skills and giving it your best shot. The most important thing – YOU gave yourself a chance and you learned from the experience.
5. You Believe You Can Do It All On Your Own
You might be able to, but it’ll take you twice as long. The reality is even if you have a clear vision of what success means to you and you’ve got natural born talents.
Keep in mind you’re only as good as what you know.
You can’t just wing it. Well you can, but again you may find yourself going in circles for a long time.
It’s valuable to have a coach or mentor who knows how the industry works and can provide you with different insights and perspectives. Someone who you can bounce ideas with and see where you are, where you fit in, and help guide you in navigating your vo career in the right direction.
Along your journey, you want to surround yourself with supportive and enriching people, not the Debbie downers and complainers. As Brian Tracy says, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with”. Choose wisely who you surround yourself with.
And who knows, like any industry, it’s all about connections. Who you know that knows what you can do and can help create the opportunities through the connections. More opportunities = More possibilities in getting you closer to your next stage of your voiceover career.
But of all the mistakes you can make, one trumps them all:
Being complacent and stubborn in your ways and not even willing to try something different.
But you’re not going to make that mistake, right?
Photo by: Jelleke Vanooteghem
