What Matters to You?

If someone were to ask you what matters most to you in life, could you answer? Do you know? Can you say in a single concise statement what your purpose in life is? Do you even have a "Life Purpose?" Does it even matter?

During my 6-week Type Intensive for actors I do an exercise called, "What Really Matters?" The point of the exercise is to get each student to start thinking about their purpose in life, both as a human as well as an actor. We explore questions like: What are you most passionate about? What is the most important thing in life? What drives you to be an actor? Etc. Most of the time, in response to my questions, I get either a blank stare or a pat, cliche answer like "to make the world abetter place through my art." It sounds noble (kind of like the "World Peace" answer you hear at beauty pageants), but is it honest and personal? The truth is, most people rarely think about these things. And that's kind of sad. Artists, especially, should know these things.

So, I ask you... What do you care about the most in life? Is it acting? Winning an Oscar? Fame and fortune? Family? God? Revenge on an Ex? What about saving the whales? The point is that it doesn't matter what it is (at least not for the sake of the exercise) as long as it's something! Why? I'm glad you asked.

I challenge actors with these questions for three basic reasons: 1) Writers write about characters who are driven and deeply passionate about something (objective). And, there is always something else that is preventing them from getting it (obstacle). Eventually they either get the object of their desire or they don't (and instead get something better). It is that passionate quest that keeps us entertained and thrilled by the story. In order to play a character who is deeply passionate, you need to be deeply passionate. 2) To advance at all in life you must set goals and determine to achieve them by some sort of systematic method. Without goals you have nothing specific to work on, thus nothing to really achieve. You cannot determine what to do next if you don't know what matters to you most. You can't set priorities or give tasks levels of importance. If you haven't, read "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People." 3) Your passions in life largely define who you are and how we, as audience members to your life story, perceive you. Your passions are just as much a part of you as your personality, your physical type, your image or your age category.

Simply put, you have to have a "life purpose" in order to accomplish great things in life. You must have something you are passionate about and driven to get, otherwise your life lacks purpose. On the flip side, if you have a whole list of desires that you are equally passionate about but none that tops the list, then your life lacks focus. Ask yourself, who is your hero? Why are they your hero? Did they get to where they are without passion, without focus, without purpose? As Martin Luther King so eloquently put it, ""If you don't have a cause to die for, you don't have a cause to live for."

My 6-week Type Intensive is designed to give actors a "descriptive snapshot" of who they are, how people in the industry see them, what makes them unique and what they alone have to offer as an actor. Having a purpose, a set of priorities and a deep focussed passion is a huge part of that picture. It helps me to "define" them. Think about it, Angelina Jolie is passionate about helping underprivileged kids, Jenny McCarthy is passionate about finding a cure for Autism, Al Pacino is passionate about the art of acting, as is Meryl Streep and Sean Penn. Those things define who those actors are. And because they are so passionate, they can play characters who are equally as passionate.

My question is not a general question at all. It is specific. What matters most to you? Don't let your answer get general. Admittedly, this question gets easier to answer as you get older. When we are young we want to "do it all," but as you get older your desires get simpler and more specific based on who you have become. And not to worry, you won't be stuck with the answer you choose now for the rest of your life. My answer to this question has changed many times over. All I care about is that you start asking. Hopefully it will inspire you to embrace a process of self-exploration that will last a lifetime and define and refine you more and more with each passing year.

One last story as an example of what I'm talking about. I have been working with a private client (I'll call her Suzy) for the past four years. Suzy would never answer me when I asked, "what matters most to you?" She always gave me the same answer, "I have several 'passions' and all are equally important." Suzy wanted to be a musician, a song writer, an actress, a novelist and she wanted to start a new line of organic skin care. Suzy had been dabbling in all those areas as long as I had known her. Over and over I asked her to pick one as her favorite and over and over she refused. For her to narrow it down to one meant the others weren't important, or worse, that she would have to say goodbye to them altogether. As a result, she has had no success with any of her desires.

Finally, after lots of probing and some deep soul searching it became obvious that what Suzy cared most about was not necessarily her career but to make her mother proud and to give her something to be happy about. Suzy's dream was to win a big award (an Oscar, a Pulitzer, a Grammy, etc.), stand on the podium and say "This is for you Mom! I love you!" Her mother was a lonely, depressed woman who was abandoned by her mother early on. As a result Suzy's mom felt "unlovable." Suzy's primary desire in life was to prove to her mom that she was lovable.

So, I assigned Suzy a writing assignment. I told her to write a love letter to her mom at least once a week and to put it on a blog. I told her it could be in the form of a letter, a monologue, song lyrics, or even a praise for her beautiful skin. Unbeknownst to her, I was focussing Suzy in on her true passion (giving her mother love and worth) by picking a preferred method of delivery (writing). For the first time since I've known her, Suzy is gaining ground in her life. A successful writer was invited to read Suzy's blog and fell in love with it. She even offered to help Suzy get a publishing deal. Finally, Suzy feels like she has "direction" in her life. And the more she writes, the more she loves it. Suzy is still as passionate about her other desires but now she has a plan to attain those as well, one by one. And it all started because she finally embraced her true passion, helping her mother to feel loved and noticed.

This is what happens when you get specific! Just pick a passion, embrace it FULLY and focus, focus, focus. Try it. Watch what happens. Ask yourself, "What matters most to me and why?"

If you care to look more deeply into this way of thinking, check out this great article on Oprah that I found on the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/23/business/media/23carr.html. She stayed focused on her passion and look what happened to her.