Is Self-Criticism Effective?

Judging Work

I talk a lot about the perfect performer: Please note that I’m not talking about a 5’8” Auburn 120lb high kicking coloratura f# who can also belt and is a comedic ingenue that can whistle during her trapeze act. I’m talking about a truffle. A well balanced person with the gift of giving performances. Well balanced in every way, has training, education, a sense of identity & self-respect, guts, honesty, is a nice person, etc. You get it well, balanced.

This definition of the perfect performer opens the door to you becoming a perfect performer, or rather, you realizing that you already are the perfect performer

You just have to pull it out from the back of your attic.

Another barrier to the ‘perfect performer’ is judging your own work.

There’s a fine line between self-teaching and self-judging

It is important to be your own best teacher. Stay informed, keep learning, and be your own best teacher. Continue to obsess and mold your craft. No matter what great teacher you find, it’s in the “Be present, analyze what you’re doing, adjust, be present” cycle that makes you better. The part that you loathe yourself for needing to make change is pointless.

Also, find teachers that do the same for you: push you to stretch your limits, keep you informed, etc.

Here is the bad part. Judging.

Let’s take this example of judging: You go to an audition, introduce yourself (thinking, oh shoot, is it song then my name or name then my song?) you start singing and crack on the first note BECAUSE you’re thinking, don’t move, stay in that 2’ box, and not the song, then you’re thinking about that note. You can’t perform while thinking about all that, judging yourself. You have to just give. Perform your piece like it is your last performance.

Next: you are in rehearsal, a supporting role. Your director isn’t giving you negative or positive feedback. Nothing. You start to self-criticize (not self-teach, nothing really constructive). That “loathing” thing. You are confusing self-worth with self-teach. They aren’t the same. Your worth is different than what you create. You change your character in order to ‘please the director,’ and now, you are getting yelled at. Your dance captain yells, your director, your stage manager pulls you aside to ask what is going on, you don’t seem like you’re on your game lately.

That’s because you aren’t. You have this little devil in your head screaming at you. He doesn’t care about me, he is putting up with me, and that’s why he isn’t giving me notes. I have to be better, different, make strong choices. NO!

* work on the technique needed for your craft

* tell the story

* be present in what you are doing, all aspects of yourself, and make adjustments to make it better

* Remember that your worth as a person is separate from your contribution as an artist

Listen, directors have a lot of people to watch, elements to focus on. So what if you don’t get the feedback you desire? Stop being a psycho needy baby. You are there to do a job, perform. It is exhausting and depleting to be a performer, yes. Directors should give you the feedback to try to fill you back up from the depleting career. Yes, they should. But directors are like every other upper level manager.

It is difficult to give feedback to every employee one manages in a business. Right?

Think about it. Let’s just take business x that makes widgets. You are asking him to give feedback to every employee. Every one. Wouldn’t manager y get mad at you if you started acting out and doing your job differently so that you get attention? Yeah!

You happen to be the employee that must help get this widget going, not matter how many steps you dance, notes you sing, lines you speak, tears you shed, or laughs you gain. You help the director get the product. The best thing you can do is perform your job (performing) the best way you can, and that is to do it without making radical choices.

If you need the feedback, ask for it, one on one, don’t waste other people’s time.

You need to become secure with this – you got picked, didn’t you? It’s not school sports. You got cast, period. Doesn’t matter as what. You got cast in the best role for you to make the product the best it can be.

At your audition, just walk in and perform your piece. You either are right for the widget or you aren’t. But it makes it impossible to have you right for the play if you are a bumbling self-judging fool.

Love your gift, or no one else will.