Celebrate the wins!

As if most of you hadn’t noticed……I am British. To confuse things even more, I am actually Scottish, but I am not going to go into a Geography lesson at the moment! Why is this important? Well, the culture of a country has a weird way of molding who you are as a person. And if you ask most people what the stereotypical traits of someone who grows up in the UK is, the list would be full of words such as reserved, stiff upper lip, unemotional, self-reproving and…well the list goes on.

Growing up in a culture where celebrating your wins is frowned upon is tough. Especially when you have a creative mind. And where self-deprecation is the order of the day. “Wow, what you did was pretty cool”; “yeah, but it was more luck than skill mate.” Seriously. This is the life of so many people. It even went as far as making fun of the American culture of celebrating what you are good at. So sad.

And it sticks with me like…..a big heavy sticky thing. Something great happens due to my hard work or my skill as a voiceover and my knee jerk reaction is to underplay it. Because if I build myself up and celebrate - the fall from grace will be much longer and hurt more when I hit the ground with a deafening thump!

I am working hard to change this. It is essential for creatives to enjoy the wins. To be able to look back and say “I did that, and I did it bloody well. I’m proud of myself”. We are in the business of constant rejection. The average audition win rate is 5%. That means we get rejected 95 times out of a hundred. If THAT isn’t a reason to celebrate booking a job – I don’t know what is.

So, 2022 is the year I really start celebrating my wins. Don’t worry, I don’t mean by posting all over social media saying how blessed and grateful I am. See – there’s that self-deprecation coming in again! I mean that I am giving myself permission to look back at a booked job and bask in the glory. To meditate on the achievement and soak it in on a personal level. To sit back, relax and say “well Sir, you did a bloody good job on that one mate”. And I’ll do all this sipping on an Earl Grey from my fine bone-china cup with my pinky high in the air and a faithful Hob-Nob sitting precariously on the saucer.

And I hope you do the same. I love seeing when other people win. When they are part of a project that made them very happy. Whenever a friend of mine sends me a video they voiced that they are proud of, it makes me feel really good for them. And I like that feeling. It gives me a sense of enormous wellbeing (Parklife!). So, be great. Celebrate your success. I look forward to hearing about it. Now, where’s that cup of tea……