Top 5 Ways I Sabotaged My Career

Struggling to break free from the shackles of self-doubt and self-sabotage? I know the feeling all too well. During the early years of my acting career, I was caught in a destructive cycle of procrastination and over-commitment that threatened to derail my dreams entirely. In this episode of "Your Journey to You," I share how I overcame these obstacles and the powerful strategies I developed to foster both career success and personal well-being. You'll hear firsthand accounts of my battle with comparison traps and overthinking, offering you relatable insights and actionable advice to transform your own journey in the challenging world of acting.

Join me as I pull back the curtain on the common pitfalls that many actors face, revealing how they can be detrimental to your growth if left unchecked.  Whether you're just stepping into the industry or looking to refine your approach, this conversation is definetly one you want to be included in. 

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P.S. Your journey doesn't end here; it's just taking flight (with a sprinkle of magic✨). Let's forge this beautifully bold path together. 💫

Your Self-Help Sidekick (KA-POW!!!),
Megan

Transcript

Welcome

Meg 0:00

Could you play that song for me ? It's my favorite song . Hi , I'm Meg , and welcome to your Journey to you . This is a podcast where actors in the film and TV industry find the tools , strategies and encouragement to succeed in their careers without compromising their well-being . Here we'll talk about overcoming imposter syndromes , setting boundaries that protect your energy and creating self-care routines that work for you . Whether you're a rising star or just getting started , this is a space where you can learn how to thrive on and off the screen . Let's dive in . So today we're talking about self-sabotage

Self Sabotage Got You Down?

Meg 0:41

. Self-sabotage is definitely something that I had major struggles with in probably the first four years of my acting career , and it wasn't until I learned some tools and some strategies on how to deal with it that I started to actually find success in my career . Honestly , I want to give you some examples of ways I've self-sabotaged , because maybe they'll also apply to you too . So today I want to give you my top five

Top 5 Ways I Sabotaged My Career

Meg 1:14

ways that I self-sabotaged my career over and over again when I was first starting out .

Meg 1:21

Starting out Okay , the first way was in procrastination . I would 100% get in an audition and then I would either procrastinate until the last minute and the quality was really poor and I was sending in a terrible acting clip , or I would procrastinate to the point where I couldn't get it done . And then I would end up in this like shame spiral where I got to do that audition , oh I didn't do that audition . I suck , I'm terrible . Oh , I got to do that audition , I'm still haven't done that audition . I'm not going to be able to have time to do it today . And then I the deadline would pass and the audition would pass and I would be like I can't believe I didn't do that audition . Why am I such a terrible person ? And I would get stuck in this really negative self-talk space . Right , and I think that's probably relatively common when you're first starting out acting , is that procrastination and that avoidance ?

Meg 2:21

And then I also found myself over committing too to . That was another huge way that I would self sabotage my progress was by over committing to things that aren't weren't even industry related , basically keeping myself too busy and leaving very little time and energy to be able to complete the auditions I needed to complete , or complete even the submissions I needed to complete . It was easier to like overwhelm myself with all of these other things and distractions . I call them distractions in life , but all of these other little things that weren't going right in life was so much easier to distract myself with those than to build up that confidence that I needed to even just submit to an audition . So I found myself procrastinating and over committing , as well as constantly comparing myself to my peers .

Meg 3:20

And this is a dangerous road , my friends , and it's a dangerous road because we can't compare ourselves to someone else . They haven't had the same experiences that we have , and that's okay . Everybody grows up with different experiences and different times in their life , and it's just so unfair to compare yourself to anybody else , whether they're your age , not your age , in the same field as you , not in the same field as you . It really comes down to you defining your own success right , because that's what gets you out of that comparison narrative , right . And so I would get stuck in this procrastination and this over committing and comparing myself to my peers , and 100% . I was constantly , constantly , constantly overthinking , and I still get stuck in this loop , and this is still something that I'm working on .

Meg 4:19

But overthinking is essentially when you're when you're replaying scenarios or decisions repeatedly over in your mind and it's leading you to analysis , paralysis . An example of this would be like second guessing the decisions you made , just in general . It could be in submitting , it could be in your audition tape . I am a textbook overthinker . My mind's always , always going and I've learned to quiet a little bit of anxiety , which has definitely helped with overthinking , but it's definitely something that I'm still currently working on . But I'm not allowing myself to self-sabotage within overthinking anymore if that makes sense , like I can get stuck in an overthinking cycle and catch it versus overthinking , overthinking , overthinking to the point where I can't act . And that's the point you want to get out of . You want to get into action and away from internal thought when it comes to overthinking .

Meg 5:18

And the last way I self-s self sabotaged and I want to share with you is coming from a place of fear of success . Fear of success is when you have this subconscious fear of achieving success that will bring like overwhelming responsibility or change or something you can't handle , and it causes you to self sabotage . So this is an example of how it manifested in my head was if I make it big and I start booking acting work and acting work and acting work and I'm doing really well , then I'm not going to have any time for my family and I'm going to be flying in and out , I'm always going to be exhausted and everybody's always going to be grabbing at my clothes and touching me and everybody's always going to be constantly surrounding me and there's going to be too many people and I'm not going to be able to focus and I'm going to mess up in an interview and and because I messed up in that interview , everybody in the world's going to know I messed up , and then everybody in the world's going to throw shade at me on social media and I'm going to feel hated and that's a spiral of fear of success . So if you've ever felt that that's super common too , I I want to put out there too . If you're struggling with fear of success , what if success gave you more time ? What if success gave you more and time for relaxation and all of these positive things ? If you're struggling with fear of success , let's flip the script on the what ifs that are negative and turn them into what ifs that are positive . So those are my five major ways that I self-sabotage and just to recap that I actually I built this six-week Stick it to

Will You Take the Challenge?

Meg 7:24

Self-Sabotage Challenge and the whole point of this challenge is for people to discover the power of immediate change , and this challenge is rooted in the alter ego method , which I'll talk more about in a minute if you haven't heard of it .

Meg 7:39

But this method is used by celebrities and athletes to help them overcome limiting beliefs , boost confidence , enhance performance and even foster resilience . It's really cool because it's a repeatable system that leaves you with a deeper understanding of yourself without years of talk therapy and I spent 15 years in talk therapy , so I know what I'm talking about , and I created this course for you because I really want to help artists and creatives out there get to the best place they can possibly be without having to spend 15 years in talk therapy to figure out who you are and what you need . So let me tell you a little bit more about the program and if you , if you're interested , just reach out or comment below and we'd love to get you started and join in .

Meg 8:26

And the alter ego method is not something that I came up with , it's actually there's a book on it by Todd Herman , and I found this book so useful , and so basically , what we're going to do is we are going to create an alter ego for you and an alter ego . The alter ego we're going to create is going to embody all these traits and values that you wish that you possessed , such as confidence , resilience that you wish that you possessed , such as confidence , resilience , proactiveness . And so that's the really fun part of this is , by stepping into that character , you can , like , grant yourself permission to act in ways that you might normally hesitate due to , you know , fear in general , fear of judgment or fear of failure , and so we can actively like bypass the self-sabotage triggers . And the cool thing about this is that , eventually , your alter ego is going to become this newer version of you that has these qualities that enhance what you are trying to achieve . So , if you're interested , comment the word fearless below . We'll get you a link to it . We'll get you into the program , get you signed up .

Meg 9:28

That's all for today , my friends . Thank you for joining me on this episode of your Journey to it . We'll get you into the program , get you signed up . That's all for today , my friends . Thank you for joining

See You Next Time

Meg 9:34

me on this episode of your journey to you . I hope you found something here that inspires you to step into your power , embrace your worth and take your career to the next level . If you loved today's episode . Please subscribe , leave a review or share it with a friend in the industry who could use a little extra support . And don't forget to follow me on social media for more tools and tips to keep you thriving . Until next time , remember your success is just as important as your well-being .