It’s time for a change…

• Posted on 8th March 2011
• in Actor's Life, Inspirational, Screenwriter's Life
• by jeffgoldstein

How do you change a life goal?

Do you wake up one morning and say “I’m changing my goal”? Do you write in your journal “I’m changing my goal”? Do you tell your partner/spouse/friends “I’m changing my goal”? Well, what do all these options have in common….. the words “I’m changing my goal”.So whether you write, speak, recite, perform, sing, yell… or many other actions, the first step to change is to convince yourself of it.

Whatever you need to do to change the direction you are going and re-format your goals & dreams. DO IT! It’s a mindset, almost like brainwashing yourself. At first I thought brainwashing was a terrible word, but the more I thought about, that’s it! …. You need to wash your brain into a different state of being.

Let me give you an example, and it’s one of my major goal changes… the goal that I was going to be a famous Actor that people crowd around for autographs. I’m getting intimate with you here now, so follow me. I did want that! I did not want the privacy, I wanted it all! I wanted a TONY, EMMY, OSCAR, & even GRAMMY. On my 5 years goal sheet I once wrote I wanted to tour the world in a musical with Whoopie Goldberg. I wanted to act with Meryl and Al, get directed by Steven and Robert… see the picture? “Get real”, people said… but hey… wait… can’t anything happen? Can’t I win the Lottery? So, yeah I could win those awards and act with those talented folks.

Then 14 years later when I turned 54, I took a look. I didn’t do extra work anymore (a great way get on the job training), although I did have a few speaking credits in some prime TV shows, but it just wasn’t happening. Granted… it still could… but I really needed to change my  mindset because I was beginning to get depressed. So what did I do? What was it that started the ball rolling, for me to change my goal.

I would not allow myself to get depressed so… I thought, a lot I thought. About me, about life, about acting, and one thing which was always there was my determination not to fail. Then, I couldn’t do it… I couldn’t change because I didn’t want to fail, and my changing was owning up to my failure. But wait… did I actually fail? I danced with Lorranie Bracco in RIDING IN CARS WITH BOYS, I had coffee with Edie Falco as a stand in on THE SOPRANOS, Denis Leary came over to me and said “I didn’t expect you to say the line that way, but I love it. So add…..” on RESCUE ME, I ate on dinner break with Kim Cattrall when filming on SEX & THE CITY… I could go on, but hey! I didn’t fail…. I made it. No one ran after me for my autograph, but I did make it… I was not a failure. (That’s what you need to put into your life situation… see all your accomplishment’s as a success).

“And now, Jeff” I said, “it’s time to move on”.

I had been writing since my Brother’s passing in 2001 (not 9/11), and had a short screenplay THE LILAC PAPERS, about my closing of his death, which I produced and flooded the Festival circuit with it. Nothing came of it other than an Honorable Mention on the 2003 LA Screenplay Festival. I thought to myself, wow I can write, so I started writing a romantic comedy KNOCK 3 TIMES. Sort of a DAVINCI CODE meets THE UGLY TRUTH. That screenplay came home with 2 Festival awards. You still with me?…. I am heading somewhere with this….

Meanwhile, auditions were becoming a chore. My fantastic agent was sending me to A & B list auditions, which meant I was auditioning beside the likes of recognizable Broadway & Film Actors. Who was getting cast… them, not me. Now yes I know law of physics… do it long enough it has to happen. But FOR ME, it wasn’t cutting it. So I really explored the passion I was developing with my writing.

That’s it… look in your life, talk to yourself, find your other passions. It’s there, don’t take the easy route by saying, “I don’t have any passions”… “I’m too tired”… It’s your life. Enjoy, have fun, make it worthwhile for yourself…. and maybe, just maybe… it might become worthwhile for someone else too.

From New York City

-Jeff

Tags: Arts, changing, Denis Leary, dream, dreams, Edie Falco, goal, goals, Kim Cattrall, mindset, Sex and the City, Television program, The DaVinci Code, The Sopranos, The Ugly Truth, Whoopi Goldberg

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