Feast or Famine
In creative careers, both feast and famine can derail your progress. Whether you're too busy with client work or discouraged by lack of bookings, allowing either extreme to stop you from working on your business leads to the same dead end.
The Actor's Dilemma
Back when I was doing theatre, I noticed something interesting: as soon as an actor got themselves into a show, they would immediately stop doing everything else for their career.
They stopped taking classes. Went on fewer auditions. Didn't work up new monologues.
"I'm going to be SO BUSY WITH REHEARSAL" they complained.
"I have LINES TO MEMORIZE" they would intone, as if that made the reality of everything else disappear.
The truth was, they would still procrastinate getting their lines memorized, and use memorization as a convenient excuse for avoiding all the parts of the job that they didn't enjoy.
I especially noticed it when I started my accountability group that met weekly before acting class.
People would come religiously every week for a while, and then one day they'd announce: "I got into a show! So…I'm not going to be able to make it to these meetings anymore. I'm just going to be SO BUSY."
Then, two months later, after the show was done, if a well-intentioned friend asked "So what are you working on now?" they'd cry:
"I'M NEVER GOING TO WORK AGAIN!!!"
I critique these actors because I used to be one myself.
The actor who didn't like to read plays, who loathed rehearsal, who put off memorizing because it was tedious, who had terrible audition anxiety, and who regularly rode the emotional rollercoaster of the career feast or famine cycle, rather than figure out how to transform that wild ride into a more sustainable artistic journey.
This tendency reveals a crucial truth about finding success in creative careers: consistency is far more important than intensity. Professionals who sustain long-term success aren't those who work the hardest during busy periods, but those who maintain relatively steady effort regardless of external circumstances.
The Voiceover Desert…and Oasis
While the cadence of our work as voice actors is quite different than that of a theatre performer, the concept is the same.
Recently, between mid-December and the end of February, I went through a fairly long dry spell, and I couldn’t identify any clear reason why it was happening.
Other friends who said it was slow pointed to a lack of auditions, but aside from the four weeks around the holidays when everything got real quiet, I was still auditioning my normal amount.
I was doing everything "right."
I was working with my coach.
I was attending voiceover workouts.
I was aiming to submit 70 auditions each week.
I re-keyworded all my samples on V123 and added new samples.
500+ auditions, and the only bookings I got were from past clients.
Typically, I book 1 in every 80-90 auditions.
So…this was not normal.
Then, the dam broke wide open.
It started when I booked my first audiobook. (Yay!)
Then the next day, a fellow voice actor I've never met reached out and said "I put you in front of my clients with a few other people, and they want you!" (WUT?!)
I booked a job on V123. And then another. (W00T!)
I got three agent callbacks. I was shortlisted for some nice juicy jobs on Bodalgo and V123. Some of these opportunities came from people I haven't seen in years. People I met networking for film work. It was intense, but in a good way, you know?
Overnight, I went from famine…to feast.
Breaking the Cycle
So often, when I hear from friends who are struggling, they tell me how they are having trouble motivating themselves to audition because they aren't booking work and they think "why bother?"
And then, when they get busy with work, they have trouble motivating themselves to keep auditioning because they've got work, so they rest on their laurels.
A better option is to figure out a minimum amount of effort you will strive to put in every single week, no matter what is going on. A benchmark that keeps you in motion.
Don't give up control over your career to what is happening around you!
Whether you are using lack of visible progress or busyness as an excuse to abandon regular career-building habits, you're not just pausing your progress—you're actively undermining your future opportunities.
Your Turn
Does any of this resonate? Which of these sounds more like you—do you give up when repeated efforts don't lead to immediate progress? OR do you stop tending to your crops when the harvest is too abundant?
ACTION STEPS
Set your minimum weekly benchmark - Decide what career-building activities you'll commit to every week, regardless of how busy or slow things are.
Create an accountability system - Find a partner or group that will help you maintain consistency through all career phases. (May I suggest the 10-week Audacious Accountability Crash Course starting in April?)
Track your long-term metrics - Remember that success often comes after sustained effort, not immediate results.
