January Reset

January reset. Let's make 2026 the year that you're doing all you can to reach your dreams. If you are anything like me, you love New Year's resolutions. And if you don't love them, that's okay, too. But it's a new year. It's a new time. Let's let's set yourself up for success in this new year. So, part of setting goals, love setting goals, is to set realistic ones, ones that are craftbased rather than resultbased. It makes no sense to say, "I'm going to book five jobs this year." Well, that's something you have absolutely no control over. But if you say, "I'm going to learn an accent this year. I'm going to stretch myself and work on horror or a genre that you haven't worked on previously." If you want to set goals like that, I love it. Maybe this year you want to make it a goal to watch more theater, go see more movies, watch shows, maybe work with your friends to like, "Oh, you've got this streaming service. let's get together and watch this show or you've got that one, let's watch this one. I don't want you to spend a lot of crazy money. A lot of movie theaters have days when they have discounted movies. Go and see movies that day. Uh Center Theater Group, uh a lot of theater companies will have days where they have discounted tickets. Screen Actors Guild and other guilds might offer discounted tickets certain days. Sometimes your membership, your SAG membership will get you a discount on something. So make it a year of filling yourself up creatively, not just with the things that you do. [gasps] Maybe this is the year that you write. Maybe you just start with journaling. Maybe you journal. Write something down. Ideas for characters. Have a character notebook. something that you see people do or little things to write down to add to your characters and things you want to do, a fun walk, a way that somebody flips their hair or something. Oh, that's great. I'm going to write that down. That's going to be something that I'm going to work on this year. Maybe you're going to check in with your reps more regularly, your manager or agent. Maybe you want to do something nice for them this year. One of the nicest things you can do for your reps, though, is to communicate with them. Making sure that they know when you're in town and when you're gone. Maybe you want to send them lunch one day or take them out for coffee, although usually they're a little too busy to do that. But see what it is. It may be something nice that you can do for them and work on that communication in that relationship. How about in your January reset, you refresh your materials? Is it time to get new head shot? Is it time to update your casting profiles? Is it time to redo your reel or do some new self tapes, make it fresh? Talking about self tapes, maybe this year you do a self tape once a week. Every week you just something that's hasn't been just something for you to work on and get better at your self tapes. Every week do things to challenge yourself because sometimes we can get complacent. Everybody can. But when you're not getting paid for something, we have to look work a little harder to make sure that we're going to be able to make our dreams a reality. Get clarity on what it is that you want to be doing. What are the roles that you want to go out for? What are the things that you want to be auditioning for? Do you need to change your look for that? Do you want to start doing superhero stuff? Then are you going to make a commitment to get into the gym? So get clarity on what it is that you want to be auditioning for. But also be flexible. If your reps are sending you up for something that feels wrong, maybe too old for you, maybe the wrong type, I would still do those auditions as long as you don't have any other objection to the material and then have a conversation with your reps about it. Maybe maybe you need to do something to appear a little younger. Maybe there's something that you need to do. But still do those auditions, of course, unless it's something that you don't want to be auditioning for. But again, have that conversation when you're refreshing all of your actors access and all of your materials and things. Maybe take a look at where you can be a local hire for. Lot of jobs now want you to be a local hireer. Sometimes it's not going to cost you the job. I don't want you to worry and lie and say that you're a local hireer somewhere where you're not. But maybe there is a friend, a relative, somebody that you forgot lives near there or has just moved there. It just makes you a little more easy to market if what they really want is somebody who can be a local hireer. I had somebody once they requested them to be a local hireer for Thailand. I said, "I wouldn't do that. That's a very expensive flight, housing, all of that. I wouldn't do that. But if you've got family there and you can be, sure, why not? So, looking at all of those things, awards season is in January. We just had the Golden Globes and we're going to have the Academy Awards are coming up and the Critics's Choice Awards and the Independent Spirit Awards. That can be fun and motivating. You can be thinking about, oh, what what are the roles that I like? What are the roles that I could have done? You're going to find people in awards season that you never heard of last year. So, it's exciting and it reminds you that it can happen for you because sometimes we can get a little down. And of course, something else that I think might be a really good thing to do in the new year in your January reset, join a class. Hopefully, it's with me, but if it's somewhere else, if it's with somebody, maybe it's not even an acting class, maybe you've always wanted to learn to crochet, whatever it is, I would make it something that's an artbased, but knowledge is fantastic as well. Maybe you really want to learn about the French Revolution. I don't know. But take a class. If you're watching this, I'm going to assume that you're either an actor or you're curious about the acting profession. So, if you've been on the fence about auditing a class, come and audit a class online if you're not local in Los Angeles. But it's January. Let's not get down. Let's have some fun. Let's approach this year with excitement, curiosity, and let's get to work. Hopefully, it's going to be paying work. But even if it's not, you know, you're doing everything you can to move your career forward. One of the things you could do to move your career forward is to subscribe if you're not already, and drop in the comments anything that I left out. I'm sure I left something out. I don't let perfect be the enemy of the good. So, drop it in the comments. Comment, like, subscribe, and I will see you next week. And when you're ready to do what you came here for in person or online, come see me for a class. That's another thing you can do in the new year. You were not listening. I have a video about that, too. Okay, burrito boy.