As Julia Cameron made famous in her ‘morning pages’ from the Artists Way (a must read for anyone living a creative life, first published in the UK in 1994) there is no running from the truth if you write 3 A4 pages of stream-of-consciousness every morning. You literally write anything.  Nobody is going to read it. It doesn’t matter what you write but it has to be first thing in the morning, no exceptions.  Do this for a few weeks and you’ll see all the answers to your questions right there in front of you.  Doing this one exercise is how I got the courage to ditch my part time job and make the leap to becoming a full time voice artist.  After several weeks of diligently doing my pages the message was relentlessly clear: my boss was a bully, I had to leave my job, and I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life, I just needed a push. So I jumped.

Can you vocalise what it is you really want? Can you get super specific about it? Say it out loud and write it down. Telling people about your goals and aims makes it real and gives it flesh.  What are your goals as a voice actor? How do you want your career to look in 6 months or a year? Really drill down into it and set specific goals that you can break down into manageable steps.

You know that mean voice in your head (OK this is confusing for us voice actors! The one that’s there all the time..not just in the booth!) the voice that puts you down when you look in the mirror, the one who encourages you to imagine the worst. Who’s voice is it? Nasty teacher from school? The bully who used to taunt you as a teenager? Your own bitchiest version of yourself?  Try replacing it with your best friend’s voice.  What would they say? How would you phrase that sentence if you were talking to a young child?  It takes effort but that bad guy can be deconstructed and rebuilt.  The more we listen to and are influenced by our inner critic, the more vanilla our reads become and the more blocks stand between us and our creativity.

Love your body. No matter how imperfect or wonky. Yoga is not about being a bendy Wendy. Sure when you go to a class there are always those more able to get into certain poses than you. But the point of yoga isn’t sport, you can join a football team for that.  Yoga is the practise of looking in, of self compassion. As Naomi Annand writes in her beautiful book “Yoga a Manual for Life”, “Yoga is mindfulness in motion, flowing breath-led sequences that open up layers of perception and remind us that we are embodied souls walking alongside others, just like us”

As voiceovers we work with our bodies, and the health of our back, neck, shoulders and jaw is key, as is a connection to our breath and diaphragmatic control – all of which are all enhanced by practicing yoga.

A mainstay in virtually any form of therapy, healing or wellness philosophy, gratitude is almost always up there at number one. Practising genuine gratitude for what we have seems to be a really important part of moving through pain. I have tried to start this habit of gratitude with my 4 year old.  We name the things we are thankful for and have a cuddle. Again it’s noticing the positives, and saying them out loud.  The pandemic has reminded me to be genuinely grateful for every client and every voice job I book, and I try to pass a sense of that on in my communications with them.

The ancient philosophy of Stoicism has become very unfashionable in recent years, so much so that the ideas have been distilled down to mean one just thing, repression of emotion, and have even become associated with the modern term ‘toxic masculinity’. Of course there is more to it than that, and a whole new movement has sprung up dedicated to the modern incarnation of stoicism, a “Stoic Mindfulness and Resilience Training course” is available from modernstoicism.com.  If you look at some of Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius’s most famous quotes such as:

“Look well into thyself: there is a source of strength which will always spring up if thou wilt always look”

and “Confine yourself to the present.” The parallels with modern mindfulness are clear.

As voice actors we can use these principles to fortify ourselves in times of uncertainty, and help us cope with the constant stream of rejection that comes with our job.

According to the law of attraction, nature hates a vacuum, so it makes sense that we should make energetic space for good things to flow into.  Ask for what you want, chuck away some stuff that no longer serves you, and good things will flow into your life. It also feels good, gives a sense of control over your environment and can benefit other people if you’re donating to charity, like this awesome initiative donating pre-loved baby clothes to vulnerable mothers. Perhaps you could clear some old voiceover sessions off your laptop onto an external hard drive, or have a really good clear out of your desk. “The space in which we live should be for the person we are becoming now. Not for the person we were in the past.” Marie Kondo.

OK bear with.  Emotional Freedom Technique involves tapping your body in specific areas whilst focussing on a problem you want to release, or goodness you wish to encourage.  

Sometimes described as “acupuncture without needles”, it is based on the same tenet of energy (or chi) as acupressure and acupuncture, but you do it on yourself by tapping your body with your fingers. 

I know I know, it sounds a bit like theatrical placebo to me too. Possibly – but if this school of thought makes you cringe a bit, go back to the law of attraction for a moment.  This one can make sense to me because it’s essentially getting you to say it – to speak out loud what you want, in a ritualised way, starting that chain reaction of positive thought followed by positive action.

When we are really up the creek, it can be helpful to simply look outside of ourselves. Volunteering, mentoring and donating your time to good causes are amazing ways to do this.  Maybe a newbie VO has emailed you to ask for some help, maybe there’s an elderly neighbour who needs a hand with things around the house. It’s easy to want to hunker down when things are tough, and it’s easy to become entrenched in a scarcity mindset, fearing that there is never enough. But unfolding your arms a moment, being vulnerable enough to try something else, can feel a lot better for you and a lot better for all of us in the long run.