2021 Goal-setting For Actors

Habits

Jan 21

Welcome to The Organized Actor! I’m Larissa Thompson, an audiobook narrator, producer, voice actor, and (now) writer. My years of experience as both an actor and a hyper-organized Amy Santiago-type producer has given me a unique insight into how to structure life for the creative mind.

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I started this blog to provide both aspiring and professional actors with tools, tips, and strategies for how to organize their lives to achieve their goals in this business we call show. Every other Thursday, expect to find new blog articles about habit forming, business and money management, and acting advice. These articles will also include actionable steps you can take to achieve your goals as an actor, entrepreneur, and human.

Today’s blog post serves two purposes: making myself accountable to you for my goals, and showing you how I pick the goals I do. You can incorporate these techniques into your goal setting endeavours going forward, either by copying and adapting my goals or coming up with your own.

At the end of 2021, I will publish another blog article reviewing my progress, what I did and did not achieve, what I learned from my successes and failures, and how I’m going to use those lessons to set better goals for 2022.

Let’s get started!

The first step in goal setting is knowing what fulfills and drives you.

Knowing your “why” helps you set goals that actually fulfill you.

My drive, my why, my “North Star”, is being a conduit for story and having a deep, meaningful, emotional connection with and impact on people I might never meet. It took me a few years to figure out this was why I wanted to be an actor. It has grown and shifted over the years as I gained experience and thought about it more deeply. Really think about what drives you - define what your North Star is for yourself. Use that as a framework to build your goals for the year.

My North Star: be a conduit for story and have a deep, meaningful, emotional connection with and impact on people I might never meet

The next step is to break down that dream into smaller steps - what do I need to do to make that happen? For example, I know that acting and writing are ways that I can feel or create that emotional resonance with strangers.

Next I break it down even further. And further. And further. Eventually, I settle on the things I need to focus on for the year.

With that in mind, here are the goals I have set for 2021:

You’ll notice that I’ve broken up my goals into four categories: Acting, Coaching, Writing, and Personal. I think it’s important to create and maintain the distinction between each facet of my life. Having balance helps prevent boredom and burnout, makes it easier to keep track of the progress I’m making in each area, and the list seems less daunting because I’ve broken it up into smaller pieces.

Let’s dig down into a couple of these goals to explain why I picked them.

I think it’s pretty easy to see why this is an effective goal. Let’s look at it using S.M.A.R.T. goals as a guide (a popular goal-setting technique created by George T. Doran which I will describe in greater detail in a future post):

Specific: this goal only relates to my audiobook narration work;
Measurable: I will know that I have achieved this goal when I complete 12 audiobooks;
Achievable: An audiobook can be anywhere from 3 hours to 30 hours long. I know that it’s possible for me to complete up to 40 finished hours of audiobooks in a month (I will outline how I calculated this number in a future post);
Relevant: this goal aligns with my North Star because I feel that transcendental emotional connection when I sit down to record audiobooks and get immersed in the story;
Time-Bound: I must achieve this goal by the end of 2021.

Start 'The Organized Actor' & Publish 26 Articles Over 2021

Hey, I’m already part way there! Again, we can use the S.M.A.R.T. goals method to figure out why this goal is a strong one.

Specific: this goal only relates to one project - The Organized Actor Blog;
Measurable: I will know that I have achieved this goal when I publish 26 articles (one every 2 weeks);
Achievable: Since I need about 2-3 hours to outline, draft, and edit a 1200 word article, I feel confident that I can do that every two weeks;
Relevant: this goal aligns with my North Star because I think helping you achieve your goals will help me feel deeply connected to you, even if we never get a chance to meet;
Time-Bound: I must achieve this goal by the end of 2021.

You might have noticed that I used the phrase “at least” in a lot of these goals.

I tend to make my goals a minimum, not my highest estimate.

I know that it’s physically possible for me to do more than what I’ve set here, but I’ve found that if I set my goals too high, I end up feeling crushed and defeated if life throws me a curveball and I can’t meet them. Sure, I can complete a blog post a week, but given that I’m still a new writer, am I going to actually be able to write a post a week when I also have those other projects on the go? Not likely, if I’m being brutally honest.

I needed to set up these goals to get a lot of easy wins - the more wins I have, the more I will want to overachieve.

Think about it: humans are naturally wired to do more of the things that feel good, and being successful at something you set out to do feels good.

So by keeping the wins within easy reach, I will keep riding the high of the success to take the next step, and then the next, and then the next…

Setting the goal is only the first step in actually achieving it, though. How do I plan on making sure I can cross this off my list at the end of the year?

The answer is “subgoals”. Break each goal down into its smallest possible component. For my “12 audiobooks in 2021” goal, that looks like this:

Produce 1 book/month Schedule my recording days in advance Record 2 hours/recording day Edit what I recorded on the same day Audition for titles on ACX, AHAB Talent, independent audiobook publishers, at least 2/week Research and reach out to at leas…

Because I already knew a lot about the audiobook industry and audiobook production, I had been taking similar steps in the past, though they were less specific. For example, I didn’t have a set number of authors I was cold calling a month and as a result there would be weeks when I didn’t have a book I was actively working on.

For goals where I don’t have that much experience, figuring out subgoals is a little harder. For example, I have little experience with blogging so I imagine my subgoals are going to change and grow over the course of the year as I learn more about best practices.

For now, I’m keeping it simple.

Pick when I work on blogging Set up my workflow in ClickUp Adhere to my "20 Minute Rule" Sit down to write a blog article for at least 20 minutes before stopping

I plan to do a whole article on my “20 Minute Rule” in the near future.

After I’ve settled on my subgoals, I decide in advance when I’m going to work on each subgoal.

When I have time to work, I shouldn’t be deciding at that moment what project to work on. I’ll inevitably feel overwhelmed by all the different projects I have to get done and end up hiding in my bed rewatching How I Met Your Mother.

Since I use ClickUp to hold all of my to-do lists and schedule my deadlines anyway, I use it to pick what I’ll be working on over the course of the week or the day. Then, once I’ve set my intention for the week, then each morning, all I have to do is execute it. My decisions for the rest of the week are just creative ones.

That isn’t to say that my schedule stays intact for the whole week. Meetings come along and mess with my schedule, so I shuffle and rearrange when I need to. Once I’ve made a decision though, I tend to stick to it. It’s like when you leave the house to go on errands, you pick the order of places you need to go based on time, distance, or whatever your criteria is: grocery store, recycling center, pharmacy, library. Once you decide on the order, you just do it.

So, to summarize:

Figure out your “why” - the reason you want to set goals in the first place. This will help you make sure you don’t get distracted by goals that don’t align with who you want to be.
Come up with some goals that will help you fulfill your “why”.
When setting goals for yourself, be sure to have goals for different parts of your life. Just as balance in a workout is important (no chicken legs or noodle arms!) balance in your personal and career development is crucial.
Use the S.M.A.R.T. Goals structure when you create your goals to make sure you have goals that are as specific as possible.
Set your goals slightly lower than you can feasibly achieve - give yourself the opportunity for a lot of smaller wins to keep momentum!
Break each goal down into its tiniest subgoal and decide in advance when you will work on them. Reschedule only if outside factors force you.
And finally, remember that you may need to change or add subgoals as you learn more about a particular industry or pursuit. It’s totally fine if you need to update or change your goals completely.

I’m looking forward to revisiting this blog post in a year and finding out what I’ve learned from achieving (or not achieving!) these goals in 2021. Remember to subscribe to my newsletter to receive future blog articles about goal setting and organization for actors!

What are your goals for 2021? Leave a comment to let me know!

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About Me

Larissa is a professional audiobook narrator, voice over artist, and actor. With her home recording studio in Vancouver, B.C., she is able to spend her time doing what she loves most - becoming a conduit for stories that resonate with us.

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Second Survivor by Leah Moyes is now available on Audible!