The Myth of the “It” Factor
There’s a pervasive myth in the entertainment industry that “you either have it, or you don’t”. That magical “it” factor that enables you to put yourself out there over and over again and have a career in the arts. You either love hamming it up on stage, naturally, or you don’t. You either have the capacity to promote yourself, to face the realities of rejection and auditioning over, and over again, or you don’t. In short, some people are meant to be in this career, and others aren’t— and there’s nothing anyone can do to change that.
I’m here to tell you that that is complete bullshit. As someone who grew up very reserved and scared to express herself, who “hated” social media and self-promotion for years, I also always knew that I wanted to be a singer. While I focused on perfecting vocal technique in the practice room day after day, I watched my artistic peers doing the real, professional work of hitting the pavement and auditioning, gigging imperfectly, and making connections with others in the industry. It seemed effortless for them. Rather than celebrating their courage and tenacity of actually building a career for themselves, I felt a deep-seeded resentment and sense of personal failure bubbling up inside of me. The story became:
“Well, that type of thing comes naturally to some people, but not others”.
“They’re not actually being artists. That’s not the artist’s work. Being an artist means perfecting your craft, not doing all of that sleazy, schmoozing stuff”.
“I’ll never be able to do to put myself out there like them, so why even try?”
For years, this was what I truly believed. I devoted myself to the practice room, learned how to do some cool tricks with my voice, but never actually performing. And in those rare instances where I was onstage, my voice was often small and uncertain, because I was so scared of “putting myself out there” in any way.
The good news is, eventually, I learned that you can become one of those people that is “good at putting themselves out there”. You can cultivate the “it” factor in tiny increments, exposing yourself to that fear of self-promotion over and over again, until your nervous system doesn’t find it so friggin’ scary all of the sudden.
It took me a few years to learn this lesson, and it was a bumpy, imperfect road. Some steps included:
FINALLY making a professional Instagram account after years of avoiding social media altogether.
Catching myself doom-scrolling and resenting other artists who looked “successful” online, and instead of putting them down, heading out to their shows to support, with no expectation of reciprocity.
Daring to share my story online, including my first song, “Spiral”, about coming back after giving up on yourself.
Pivoting my mindset around auditions and open mics to make them performance opportunities, rather than rejections waiting to happen.
It hasn’t been an easy journey. I still struggle a lot with feelings of inadequacy in my art and career. But the difference is that now, I have the capacity to handle those emotions and move through them, because I’ve already proven to myself in other situations that I can do that. And the funniest part is, audience members have now started to come up to me and say things like, “wow, you are such a natural onstage!”. If they only knew :).
Everyone is a star. And that doesn’t mean that “actually, no one is”. You have the capacity to change the person you are and do that terrifying thing you’ve always been avoiding. Just show up for the work a little bit every day, with no expectation of “reward”, and see who you’ll become.
