Every Artist Was First An Amateur

Read that again:

"Every Artist Was First An Amateur" - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Take a moment and really think about what that means. Leonardo DaVinci, Karl Lagerfeld, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jesse Livermore and any other human being you can think of or have looked up to is/was an artist sculpting their own destiny. But the one thing that every single person you can think of started with was the fact that they started out as an amateur and had to take the necessary stepping stones and building blocks to get to where they are. 

They did not start out as stars or successful individuals. 

Too often we see someone in their success and believe that they just started in their career and "got lucky". The actress winning the Oscar must have just stepped onto the scene and gotten lucky right? I guarantee that she has been working her tail off for years; going to every audition, spending countless hours learning about herself and networking and working dead end jobs in order to pay her bills. She walked a long and lonely road before she won that Oscar and will continue on that road behind the scenes AFTER she wins that award.

Dream big but start small.

Time and time again I would dream big and picture myself in the life that I had created in my mind. I would get so excited about the life I was going to create for myself and then all of a sudden the dream would come crashing down on me. I would be so depressed that no one could talk me out of my depression. I then realised that I had it in my mind that I would just wake up one day and become the dream I had envisioned without doing the work FIRST. 

Prep work.

If you are making a career change or you are just starting out in the working world make sure you take the smaller steps first. When I was working to become a professional actor I knew I would have to pay my dues and learn everything I could before I had any kind of spotlight on me. There are some stars that get blinded in the spot light WITHOUT doing much training or taking those small steps first and they end up looking ridiculous and awkward. If you are serious about what you are dreaming about make sure you are comfortable with taking those smaller yet necessary steps to become the person you need to become BEFORE you present yourself to the world. 

Prepare, prepare, prepare and don't be lazy about it!

Yes, it's boring to not get to live the dream right away and to have to spend countless hours training behind the curtain. Actors spend very little time in front of the camera and bodybuilders spend maybe 2 hours (depending on how many shows they do) on stage in the 8,760 hours in a year. So the other 8,758 hours are spent taking the necessary steps to become great. 

Do what you need to do. Do it until you are exhausted and get angry about having to do any more and then when you feel like giving up, do more. 

Never give up because when you give up on the dream you are allowing yourself to settle and essentially you are giving up on yourself. 

Your age doesn't matter. You might be 75 or you might be 25 and feel as though you've spent all this time training for something else and you no longer wish to do that thing. The idea is to start somewhere.
Read 7 Steps To The Real You to help you figure out where you belong.

"Be humble in your beginnings and then be humble in your success." - Clare Baukham

The next time you see someone you admire, remember that they too began as an amateur and for them it has been a very long road.