You'll Never Make It...

People think it is incredibly cute to enroll their children into dance lessons. When their child comes up to them at the age of 4 saying that they want to be a ballerina, so they enroll them into ballet lessons. It will be a chance for them to met new friends, they will think, they will have a skill that will set them apart from others, they think. Yet, when their child is 13-14 years old saying they want to persue a career in the performing arts, it stops being cute. It starts becoming serious. How are they going to survive in an unstable career field? How will they buy a house? How will they live? 

This may be surprising, but they will already know how difficult the industry is, and making them feel down about themselves will do nothing for their confidence. They already know that only the extremely lucky people manage to get hired, yet they still want to put the work in and train their hardest, even just to try to achieve the career of their dreams. 

It is also likely that they are not even doing this for the fame either. They want to do this since it is something they love and a willing to work for, just as a child wanting to train to be a teacher, or a doctor. They may want to do theatre, but that doesn't mean they want to be in the West End or on Broadway. They may want to set up their own theatre company and tour shows locally in the area they live. They may want to do TV and Film, but that doesn't mean they want to be in Hollywood Blockbuster movies, they may want to be in indie films and independent wed series. 

When parents hear that their children want to pursue a career in the performing arts, they act asthough their child has failed them. All those years they wanted young Susan to become a Doctor, since that's what all the clever children do and it is a stable career field with good pay, and she turns around and says she wants to become a professional dancer.

Its terrible! THE SHAME!

People who haven't really considered the performing arts as a career field don't really understand how mentally exhausting all this negativity from family and friends can be, it is already difficult enough. You think you are an incredible singer, until someone comes along ho has been classically trained since they were 3 years old. You think you are an incredible dancer, until someone with amazing dancing skills comes along and does a triple pirouette without hesitation. You think you are pretty, until someone comes into the audition room looking like you, but slightly prettier. 

You are constantly up against competition, fighting for a chance to be able to audition for something you might not even end up being a part of, and the added voice from family and friends saying that acting is an incredibly unstable job opportunity really does not help. 

So yeah, pursuing a career in the performing arts, you may not make it, but it is definitely worth a try if its truly what you want to do with your life. No job field guarantees a stable job at the end of it. I worked in the financial services industry whilst taking a gap year between leaving college and going to university, and within 3 months of working their I was told that I would be getting made redundant. So why hold yourself back from what you truly want to do? No job is truly stable, the company you work for may go bust any day, or they might decide that they want to cut down on their staff and let you go. So if I'm going to have to make a career choice, I'm pursuing my dream. I might never make it, but at least I have tried, it would be better than turning back and doing a job I hated without even trying.