Embracing Rejection And Forgetting Where I Put That Thing.
I have a tendency to write down bits of wisdom that strike me as particularly profound and leave them scattered around my desk - not necessarily intentionally, I’m just a bit of a Clutterbug. Spellcheck doesn’t believe me that Clutterbug is a word. Well it IS now, spellcheck! Deal with it! Yeah, I try really hard to be organized and keep my workspace clean and clear and usually fail miserably at it. One day I’ll be the type of person who keeps it all clean and uncluttered. Sure I will be. Live the dream, Allison.
Anyway, the point of this blog that is quickly getting away from me is that I was, GASP cleaning up my workspace the other day and I found a notecard with two quotes on it, both of which I found quite profound but of course I did, I wrote them down in the first place and then promptly forgot about them under a sea of random papers and desk detritus. But lo! I discovered them and thought, hey, if I write a blog post about them, maybe I’ll be more likely to retain the wisdom. Which is somewhat unlikely since when I logged in to write this blog post there were at least 2 other blog posts I had no memory of writing. However, that just meant that reading them was a bit of a treat because I’m a big fan of my hilarious and exceptional writing skills, and also of my humility.
I’m still not at the point of this blog, am I? I can hear you yelling, “Focus, Allison! What are the quotes?!” Actually, now that I listen closer, that’s my neighbors yelling at me to turn down the anime fight scene music I often listen to when I write a blog posts. It helps me stay motivated.
The quotes! Look at that, 4 paragraphs in and I’m finally getting to the point of this blog. The first quote is, “I needed that journey - painful as it was, uncertain as it was…” I think we can all relate to this one on some level. As a voice actor I know about uncertainty all too well. When you make the decision to become a voiceover artist, you simply HAVE to embrace uncertainty. The uncertainty of what path to take to get to where you want to be, the uncertainty of even figuring out WHERE you want to be. The uncertainty of when the next gig will come in and especially in the beginning, the uncertainty of whether or not you’re even good enough to get any gigs. But that brings me back to the journey. Every voice actor has a journey, and most of them involve their fair share of pain and uncertainty. What pain could a voice over professional possible have to endure? Well, I’m glad you asked.
That leads me to the second quote, “If you’re not being rejected, you’re not trying.” A professional VO books approximately 1 out of every 10-20 auditions. A new VO books somewhere around 1 out of every 20-100 auditions. Imagine working and striving and learning and pushing yourself to submit to 100 auditions. It’s a mental challenge and I’m not ashamed to admit there have been times I cried because I didn’t get a role I desperately wanted. But I also know that rejection is part of the process of getting better. And the better I get, the more gigs I book. There is still rejection, there will always be rejection, but now I try to embrace the rejection as best I can, because it means I’m trying, and as long as I’m trying, I’m improving. And ultimately that’s what I want; to provide the very best experience for my clients I can. Because a happy client is a happy Allison.
