S4E8: Goal Setting
In this episode, Hayley and Amy chat about goal setting! How do we set personal and professional goals for ourselves and work toward achieving them? How do we cope with failure? How do we celebrate our successes? All this and more in today’s episode! Scroll down for episode notes and transcript!
Episode Notes
Hosts: Hayley Goldenberg and Amy Andrews
Music: Chloe Geller
Episode Resources:
National Alliance for Musical Theatre (NAMT)
Marlo Hunter - Freelance Artist’s Manifesto
Women & Theatre Blog - Gayle Seay
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Episode Transcript
(Music)
Hayley: Hello, beautiful people, and welcome back to the Women & Theatre Podcast. We're your hosts, Hayley Goldenberg…
Amy: And Amy Andrews. Grab a cozy beverage and join us as we talk to women and gender-expansive folks about their experiences at the intersection of womanhood and theatre.
Hayley: On the pod, we cultivate open conversations across identities and professional roles.
Amy: We look for opportunities to support one another in growing our careers.
Hayley: And we pool our collective wisdom to build the equitable theatrical spaces of the future.
(Music)
Hayley: Hello, beautiful people. Hi, Amy.
Amy: Hi, Hayley. Hello.
Hayley: How's your week going?
Amy: It's going. It is a busy, busy week, and we are getting through. How is your week going?
Hayley: That's how I feel too. I just got back to New York, listeners, from Canada. And I am feeling a little scattered right now, but I'm excited to be here as always and to be chatting with you, Amy, and with all of you friends.
Amy: So before we get into our juicy topic for today, shall we do a little Roses and Thorns?
Hayley: Yeah, let's do it.
Amy: My rose for today is… You know what? My rose for today is coffee. I just want to give a shout-out to coffee. She keeps me going on busy weeks. Fun fact about me: I was not a coffee drinker ever in my adult life until I was pregnant with my daughter.
And when I got pregnant, that first-trimester exhaustion, I was like, “I will not get through this life without coffee.” And now, listeners, I am so addicted, and like, I'm not even mad about it because I love it so much.
Hayley: Now she’s that Lorelai Gilmore meme, the “I want coffee in an IV.”
Amy: 100%. So, that's my rose. Coffee is my rose. My thorn for today is the old familiar thorn of taking on, like, maybe one too many things for myself in my life, which is a thorn I create for myself. You know how we all have those cyclical challenges that just keep coming up in our lives because we kind of perpetuate them for ourselves? That's me. That's my burden, is taking on too many things. And today, I am feeling the thorn side of that burden. So that's me. What are your rose and thorn, Hayley?
Hayley: Yeah. I feel you. I also do that. I also do that. And, listeners, maybe you do that too. I'm sure some of you do. It's relatable content. But Roses and Thorns for me… My rose is that I have a busy month full of creative things.
Amy: Yay!
Hayley: And it seems like there's some momentum happening in my career in a way that's making itself known to me. And that's always exciting because - we're going to talk about this today in our juicy topic - but it can be hard to celebrate the small wins when this career path can feel like you're shouting into a void sometimes about what you're doing and no one's hearing you. So it's really nice when that echo kind of comes back, and you start to hear yourself echoed through the waves of the things you're putting out there.
Amy: What a great way of putting that. You must be a writer.
Hayley: I've never written a day in my life. No, of course. Thank you for saying that.
But yeah, so I've been feeling those echoes coming back and like, the seeds of relationships that I've been building. Those people are speaking my names into rooms, and I'm just so grateful for that, you know. And I try to do that for other people, and so it's really nice when it gets done for you and then you're told about it too. So that's my rose.
My thorn is my period cramps got me down, everybody. It's just hard, I'm somebody who struggles with a lot around my period and with menstruation, and I'm investigating what that might mean. Because I think that there are some things - you know, lack of research about things that affect people with uteruses. This person with a uterus struggles with this a lot.
I’m a very high-achieving person, I take on a lot of stuff, and I get really down on myself during these times when I feel I have a lot of pain, mental fog, and struggle focusing. I love to crush tasks. I love a good list. And like, when I have trouble with that, I really have a hard time being kind to myself and having patience with myself. And that's something I'm working on. I'm trying to be patient with myself and know that this is temporary, and we'll move through it. And yeah, that's my thorn.
Amy: For you and for listeners who may struggle with similar issues, there's a lot of great writing that I've been seeing recently, and thinking and speaking, about the cycles of our lives. How we are socialized to live according to patriarchal cycles that are, like, year cycles and day cycles, awake and asleep. There's a lot less focus in our society about how our energy changes from week to week, from month to month, and seasons of the year.
And like, I think a lot of us, we have this patriarchal expectation of ourselves that we will have consistent - like, the same amount of energy every day. And that's not the case for those of us - maybe especially, for those of us who have menstrual cycles. And it's tricky trying to plan for that, because it requires breaking out of this very ingrained way of thinking.
Hayley: Not just ingrained way of thinking, but ingrained way of life, because our society operates on these calendars, exactly to your point. So to try to do it differently within a system that is set up to favor the other direction is challenging. So thank you for that.
I think on the topic of cycles, I'm going to try to segue us into our topic for today, which - I have to tell you listeners, if you know me in real life, you know that I get really, really nerdy about the topic that we're about to talk about today, which is goal setting and crushing your goals - your career goals, your personal goals. I sometimes think my alternate career path would have been like, as a career coach, because I just love to talk about people's aspirations and dreams and how to achieve them. So I'm really excited to bring this conversation into Women & Theatre today.
So Amy, I just want to open up this conversation about goal setting in theatre and in general with the question of: What is a recent goal that you've achieved that you're proud of? And how is it that you got there? Like, what are the tangible steps that you took to achieve that goal?
Amy: Yeah, a recent goal that I have achieved with one of my theatre projects is for my musical in progress To the Lighthouse. We did a reading of it a couple of months ago, in July, and it was great. I'm so proud of it. We got a ton of people in a Zoom room, and they read out our work, and we listened to the demos of the songs, and it was so helpful to our process to just hear the whole thing all together. It really gave us a lot of momentum as far as the revisions that we're doing now and moving the project forward.
How did we get there? We got there through a lot of hard work and a lot of mindful, intentional goal setting. Including - and I want to highlight this because I think it's important - we set that reading date, I think, probably about six months in advance. We were not where we needed to be. It was a very ambitious goal, that reading date. And having that date on the calendar and knowing, like, okay, invites are out, people are showing up to hear this project, so we better get it done… That gave us the kick in the pants that we needed to really be strict with ourselves about our process and make sure that we were creating the things that we needed to create in order to get to that reading and be proud of it.
Hayley: For me, one of the goals that I've had over the past year or so was really to get my name out there as a writer. You know, oftentimes you hear this conventional wisdom about specific, achievable, measurable goals, which are all wonderful things.
Amy: SMART goals!
Hayley: SMART goals, yeah. What is it? It's…
Amy: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely.
Hayley: Yeah. I mean, I'm working towards a world premiere of one of my musicals, because I've never had a fully realized production of anything that I've written before. And one of the broader goals that I've been working on is trying to get my name out there, so that by doing so, I can try to start building out relationships and a team of people who are excited about my work, who can help me kind of work towards getting there. So I sort of see this goal of brand awareness, if we're talking in marketing terms, but just about me as a writer.
It can be hard as a multi-hyphenate sometimes, because you often get pigeonholed into one thing or people know you as one thing, and when I first moved to the city, I was starting to see a lot of traction with my directing career. Which is really exciting, I love directing so much, and I want to direct. But I think for this season, I really want to focus on people knowing me as a writer. And so I'm going to focus my energy and my goals on getting those shows out there, and getting my name out there as a writer.
And so some of the things that I did to achieve that were - you know, I was lucky enough to be accepted into the NAMT Directing Observership Program when I first moved to the city, and through that, I built some friendships and relationships within the organization, and so I was able to then invite some of those friends and colleagues when I was having a 54 Below concert with my music being shared. And through that opportunity, I was then offered another opportunity to then present some of my work at NAMT last year as a writer.
So I was able to parlay my directing opportunity into a writing opportunity at NAMT. Which opened so many doors, because it's a wonderful community, I love being a part of the NAMT family. Through that community, there are tons of directors and writers and choreographers and all kinds of people who are in the industry and at a wide variety of levels. And so, showcasing there was able to open some doors to further opportunities, and one thing sort of led to another that way.
The tangible piece of information that I want to give to you all is the follow-ups were really important from that, and the invitations. Like, invite people early and often. Following up with people and saying, “Hey, we met at NAMT, I just want to give you an idea of what we're up to…”
Amy: Send the email.
Hayley: Send the email. Yeah, absolutely. This can be really overwhelming, I understand the feeling of not wanting to annoy people. But the reality is that if you're a theatre professional, you get these emails all the time. If you ask somebody for coffee or you want to chat about something specific, the worst thing that can happen is that they say no. And the best thing that can happen is that you start to make some friends and build some relationships with people who can speak your name into rooms.
When I was able to start building these relationships, it just continued to snowball on itself, and it still does. Because of this opportunity, I was able to get that opportunity, and because of that opportunity, I met this person who let me know about this other thing or who put me in contact with this person. Work begets work. That's a truism that I feel like we hear a lot, but it's very true in this industry. Send the emails, ask for something specific and small, make friends, don't make it transactional - I mean, really, you know, ask people what they're interested in, figure out where the synergy is, and build that together.
So that's been really helpful in getting my name out there. I think also - this is a hard one, but just making peace with self-promotion and finding an authentic way to do it is important. I'm still on this journey. I hate being seen, you guys. I have a love/hate relationship with having myself out there. Because it's a goal for me. It's something I want and need to achieve the career that I want and to be in the rooms that I want and to do the kind of powerful work I want to do. But it's really scary. Like, it's scary to put yourself out there.
The most important thing is that you're sort of aligning with your values and acting in accordance with your values, and trial and error, and honestly, like, exposure therapy. You just gotta tell the people that you're doing the thing, you know? Something that has been powerful for me is just not being afraid to say what I want out loud to people. And this is something that Marlo Hunter talks about in Freelance Artist Manifesto, so credit to her.
It's really powerful to tell people, like, this is the goal that I'm working towards, because it then opens up possibilities for them to go, like, “Oh, well, I actually know this person who might be a good person for you to know” and “Oh, that's really good to know,” because then the next time something comes up for them that that is relevant or can be a partnership, it happens more naturally for them to help you. So, that's a big one.
Amy: Yes! I talk about that with my husband all the time. Like about, we've got to put out into the world what we're looking for and where we're going so that people can know how to help us. Because people want to help people. They do. Like, if somebody comes up to you and says, “Hey, this is what I'm trying to do,” it's so much easier to help them if they have a specific, like… “These are the kinds of opportunities I'm looking for. These are the people I want to meet.” Then you can really see where you fit into that as a helper.
Hayley: Yeah, for sure. Okay, well, so, on that topic, what is your approach to goal setting, Amy? How do you think about your goals, and what specific tools do you use to help you stay on track with this stuff? When you decide, like, “Yes, I want to do this,” how do you get there?
Amy: Excellent question. I, like you, am very nerdy about goal setting. I love talking about it, I love working on it. For me, I have quarterly check-ins with myself. I put them on the calendar, and I go - I usually, weather permitting, I like to take a walk, maybe like, down by the Hudson River, by a body of water, and I do it like, freehand, pencil and paper, and I go through each area of my life. Like, I go through creative work and money and my home and my family and my spirituality. Like, every different category.
And I go through and I say okay, where am I at? Where do I want to be by my next quarterly check-in? And then once I have that vision - which is usually a quarterly vision, sometimes it's a bigger one depending on what it is - then I work backwards and I put benchmarks into place. Like, okay, if this is where I want to be in three months, then this is where I need to be by the end of month two. This is where I need to be by the end of month one.
And then - and I want to give a shout-out to my career coach that I work with, Betsy Capes of Capes Coaching. She has been instrumental to me in setting up goal-setting practices that work for me. So I set those goals and those benchmarks, and then I make a list of: What are ten action steps that I can take toward this immediately? Like, what are ten things I can do right now? And then I have my list and like, they don't all have to get done that day. But as I'm going through the week and I have five minutes, I can look at that list of action steps and say, “Hey, how can I use these five minutes to move me closer to my goal?”
So, yeah, I'm a big fan of reflection. And I'm a big fan of accountability. We were just talking about sharing your goals with people so they can help you toward them. I'm a big believer in that. And if I have a goal that I'm working toward that I know is going to be difficult, I like to have people in my life who I can say, “Hey, by Friday next week, I want to have sent five emails. Can you shoot me a text on Wednesday and ask me how it's going?” And just have other people who I'm accountable to who will help remind me, “Hey, this is your goal that you set for yourself. Are you on track? If you're not on track, how are you gonna shift things”
Hayley: Yeah. I just want to highlight a really important point , which is just that it can be really hard to be accountable only to yourself. Like, there are some people who are really good at that. But I think knowing what type of person you are and what kind of motivation you need is a very important piece of figuring out how to crush your goals. And oftentimes, for many of us, we have an easier time being accountable to other people. And so having that buddy in place to be like, “Hey, how's it going?” puts that extra pressure on to help get it done. So I really like that. Thank you for sharing your approach.
Amy: Yeah, what's your approach?
Hayley: Yeah, it’s honestly similar. I do also break things down into categories based on my life. I like to segment things, because it just helps my brain to not get overwhelmed with all the different types of things that I want. And I also - this is something that's new to me, but I've been prioritizing some of those pieces of the pie more than others during different seasons of my life. Kind of going back into the cycles thing we were talking about.
So, for me, because I spend a lot of my time in Toronto with my spouse and out of the place where I am doing work - it doesn't mean I'm, like, not focusing on my career when I'm there. But I am focusing more on my family. And when I'm in New York, I focus more on my career. Having allowances for, like, “Oh, this is what this time is for” helps to keep me focused. Because it's easier for our brains to focus on one or two things than many, many things at once.
But to talk more about my framework, I check in once a month and say like, “What are my focuses in each of my different life areas for this month?” So for this month, I'm focusing - for my fitness goals, I'm focusing on getting to the gym three times a week. And for my personal/mental/spiritual goals, like, I'm doing yoga in the morning. I try to set those goals up for myself, like, “I'm going to do this many days of X,” and then build a framework around that for that set period of time. Whether it's that month or the chunk that I'm in one place, so that I'm then not trying to take on too many things when the variables are changing.
So that's a thing I do. I do a lot of journaling and visualization as well. I work in GoodNotes a lot, and I'll just like, write out all the things that I want and then try to think about how I can then break that down into actual goals and actionable items. I'm a big fan of reflection also. I like to spend time with myself and think about: What is it that I want my life to look like as I grow older and as I have more resources and as I have more opportunities? Like, what does that dream look like? And how can I do things to like, fill my days with - not just the pieces to get there but the things that bring me joy in those areas, so that I can enjoy the journey as well? Yeah, that's my approach.
Writing things down. That's the big thing. I have to write it down. If it doesn't get written down, it doesn't happen. I think setting aside that date with yourself, that's something I do also. I’ll set a whole vibe - like, you were talking about your vibe walking by the Hudson. Like, I'll put on some chill music, I'll light a candle, I'll, like, put something on the TV that's ambiance, and I vibe and hang with myself and think about what I want. Yeah.
(Musical transition)
Hayley: So how do you stay motivated, Amy? How do you stay motivated and focused towards those goals? Because sometimes we can want these huge things and it takes a long time to get there. So how do you keep yourself on track when things get hard?
Amy: Yeah. ‘Cause it does. It does get hard. It always gets hard. I've found for myself, when I set goals… I have big dreams. I'm a big dreamer, I know you are too. And so we set these goals for ourselves that are maybe assuming that our lives are going to be perfect and that like, it's going to be a straight path toward that goal, and it never ever actually is. So yeah, how do I stay motivated?
Definitely, the accountability is a piece of it. Having other people help keep me motivated. Another big thing that I learned a while ago is identifying a really clear “why” behind my goals.
So like, for example, I want to have my show on Broadway. What's the why behind that? Is it because I want to be a famous musical theatre writer? Is it because I want my work to reach the broadest audience possible? Because I want to work with people who are the best of the best at the top of their game, bringing my piece to life?
You know, go to that level of why and then go to the next level of why, right? Like, what does that mean for me as a person? Does that mean that I'm going to have an amazing legacy to leave my daughter? Does that mean that I am going to feel fulfilled on some deep personal level? Does that mean that I am going to have the life that little Amy dreamed of?
And I mean, it's an example. But I think, no matter what area of your life it's in, just digging down to the why behind the why. And then when things get hard, coming back to that. I like to have it on a post-it note or in a journal or somewhere where I can go back and look at it. Because you do lose yourself, and you say, “Why am I doing this?” And so to have that written down and be able to look back at it and say, “Oh, yeah, that is important to me…”
I think it also comes back to values alignment - like, we we talk a ton about that on this podcast. But yeah, if you're clear on what your values are, then ideally, in an ideal world, your goals are aligned with your values and reflect your values. So when I'm feeling lost, I'll sometimes look at the goal and say, “Okay, which of my core values does this align with? And why is that core value important to me? Oh yeah, that's why this goal is important to me,” and that’ll help keep me on track. How do you stay motivated?
Hayley: Yeah, well, I mean, I talk about celebrating the wins. I think that that's a big thing. Taking the time to stop when something small happens that's good for your career is so important, especially in this industry that's riddled with failure and rejection and just hardship in general for many, many people.
I think taking the moments of “I made it to the next round of something” or “Someone recommended me for something” or just any of those small things. I got an email, like, a nice email from somebody saying that they had a great time working with me. Those things are not, like, “I won a Tony Award,” and they're not seen on the highlight reel of social media, but those things are… They're so fulfilling if you actually take the time to like, sit with what that means, that you were able to make an impact, on even a small level, for somebody.
And I find the most helpful perspective for me in achieving my goals is treating it as if that's the universe sending me a little, like, “Keep going!” is really helpful. Whether or not I fully buy into the spirituality aspect of it, for me, it's just - it's more helpful for me to think that that's what it is than it's, you know, arbitrary or something.
So that really helps me stay motivated, because it feels like that cookie that you work so hard to get. We're trained to want a gold star or something tangible for achieving something. Working with that is really helpful, and giving yourself a little cookie by celebrating that win. And that can look a lot of different ways - you know, taking the time to reflect on it and sit with it, that's nice. You know, maybe you go buy yourself a coffee, maybe you like, give yourself the opportunity to have a little dinner with your significant other or your friend to celebrate it. You know, whatever it is for you. But I think that that really helps me stay motivated.
The other thing I think I want to just highlight is when you write something down and then can look back and reflect on what you've achieved, it really helps to put things in perspective. Because when we're talking about getting demotivated, it's usually about a loss of perspective in some way of where you are, and feeling like you're floating in the void or like, shouting into this echo chamber of nothing. It's really helpful to be able to go back and think about what you wanted when you first started, and how that person, that version of you, would view what you're doing now. That's what really helps me stay grounded.
You know, I had an experience this summer where I got an email from a big institution asking me to apply for something, and saying, like, “Oh, we've heard about your work, and we want you to submit your musical. We've heard about it.” And I had this moment where I went, “Oh, that's cool.” And then I stopped myself, because I was like, “Oh, that's cool??”
When I first moved to New York City, I could not imagine how the heck I was going to get anyone to know that I was good at anything, or recognize that I was a person who does this, you know? The idea of an institution like that being aware of my writing or thinking, “Oh, I think that your show is worth looking at - that would have been a huge win for me then. And I noticed myself sort of go, like, “Oh, that's cool.” And I think that stopping myself there and realizing like, “Oh, hey, I think I need to bring this practice back, of like, celebrating every little win.” Because I really do think that that continues to propel me forward as I inevitably face challenges and failure.
I think that's a good segue to talk about: What do we do when things go wrong? How do you handle failure? How do you handle challenges, setbacks, rejection? Or when you don't achieve that goal by that time that you wanted? What do you do?
Amy: Yeah. There have been times in my life where it's felt easy - when things don't work out the way I want them to, it's felt easy to like crawl into a hole and say, “Well, that didn't work out, so I'm a big failure, and I'm never gonna try anything like that ever again, because now I've learned my lesson.” And I think the harder thing that becomes easier with practice is - it's such a trope, a cliche, yeah - but like, to treat every failure truly as a learning opportunity, because it always is.
Because this is life. There's no losing at life, there's just learning and figuring out what to do differently the next time. Because you always get a do-over, because it's life. Maybe not a do-over in the exact same way, but like we said all the way back in Roses and Thorns today, there are these cyclical challenges that keep coming up, and that's a blessing and a curse. And the curse part of it is that the same things keep coming up, but the blessing part of it is that we can observe, and we can learn, and we can work on changing how we respond to them.
So that - you know, if it was an utter failure the last time, maybe this next time, it's like, a small failure, you know? And we can work toward being able to manage these things. So I think, yeah, keeping perspective is really important. Focusing on the learning rather than the failing is really important.
And reaching out - this is coming from Brené Brown's work around shame, but I think the worst thing you can do when things go wrong is to keep it to yourself and not talk about it. Because then that turns it into this big shame bubble that just lives inside your body. Whereas if you speak it aloud, if you call up a friend and say, “Hey, oh my god, this thing happened and I feel horrible about it…” Then your friend can provide that perspective that maybe it's hard for you to have in the moment. And even just speaking it aloud, I think, helps you on the road toward being more okay with it, I guess. Because failure happens, and it's an inevitable part of life. So we can let it destroy us, or we can use it. I think. Easier said than done. But, that's…
Hayley: No, but for real. Yeah, I love that philosophy. I have a really hard time putting myself in a position where I can fail in the first place. For a long time, I did not go for the big things that I really wanted, because I was really scared about failure. And I think at other times in my life, this sort of sounds like an oxymoron, but I think I've also been afraid of success.
Amy: Oh, me too, 100%.
Hayley: Because then that gives more opportunity for failure more publicly in a way that people can judge you and that's really hard for me.
Something that's been helpful with failure for me is, when I'm setting the goals in the first place, creating goals that are actually within your control are really helpful. So as a writer, we have to submit to things, and lots of times we hear no. So, for me, a more useful goal than, “I'd like to win this award,” or “I'd like to be selected for this thing,” is, “I'd like to submit to this many things,” or “I would like to put in an application that I feel really proud of.” Like, I want to get this done early and show a friend and take the time to talk with them about how I'm framing myself in this application, things like that.
I’ve found a lot of peace in making the goals about things that don't require just a checkmark from somebody else. Obviously, I have lots of goals like that. Like, I don't necessarily have sole control over whether or not my musical has a world premiere, which is a big goal for me right now. I need a lot of other people to make that goal happen, but my sub-goals within that goal, I try to frame them in ways that are about what can I actually control. Because so much of this business and this industry and this art form is out of our control, does rely on so many different people and factors and resources and things, that, you know, you can never control everything. It's not a meritocracy as much as we want it to be. If you work this hard, you won't necessarily achieve this stride. So I sort of frame what I do before the failure happens. That's something that helps me avoid it.
But then when it comes to actual failure - I mean, I'm really bad at it, honestly. I hate failing. I just, I mean, I hate it. I oftentimes would rather get out before I fail than see the thing through and be bad. And that's something I don't love about myself, currently. I would like to work on that and make that different because I think it does hold me back. And it's part of that next leveling up that I think I want to do in my career is like…
Amy: …that you are doing in your career!
Hayley: Thank you, that I am doing in my career… is getting in these places where, yeah, I might fail because I don't know if I'm ready. And I really am in a practice of trying to be okay with the fact that I might fail, and that that's a matter of life, and that that doesn't reflect who I am as a human being. I think separating who I am as a human versus the art that I produce or the work that I produce is really helpful in failure.
On a small level, I think just trying to feel your feelings and talk about it, like Amy said, and then move on is helpful. And the perspective of, like, learning a lesson from it is great. But also, in some cases it's like, “Well, you didn't win that thing, like, okay, on to the next one,” you know? It wasn't right for you. The idea that that opportunity, if you didn't get it, or if you didn't win this thing this time, it wasn't the right time for you. And that if somebody else doesn't see your value, or an institution doesn't see your value, then you probably don't want to work there, because you want to work with people who love and respect and value what it is that you do and the awesomeness that you bring to the table and what makes you rock. That’s how I kinda feel about it.
Amy: Yeah. The idea that what's for you won't pass you by.
Hayley: Exactly. Yeah. We've talked a little bit about celebrating your wins. I've said that that's a big thing for me, but how about you, Amy? When things go right, when you do succeed, how do you acknowledge and celebrate success? Because I know that's really hard for a lot of people.
Amy: Yeah! That's, yeah, that's a thing I'm bad at. You're bad at failure, I'm bad at success. And it's a thing that - like you said, I really need to stop myself sometimes and look at it through the perspective of little Amy, or like Amy from five years ago.
Hayley: Little you is a big one. Keep a photo of yourself, of baby you, somewhere that - I don't know, it's a reminder, yeah.
Amy: Yeah, and it's something that I am consciously trying to be better at, is just acknowledging when something goes well. And like, not just acknowledging, but treating it as as special a thing as it is because it is. Things don't go our way a whole bunch of the time. So when it does, when they do, it's worth celebrating, and it's worth making it special. I think a thing that's helpful is knowing like, the little treats that bring you joy - time spent with your loved one, food or drink type treats, buying a new notebook or a new pen… There are so many ways to acknowledge and celebrate success, but the important thing is to do it.
Hayley: I like that. Good point. I feel like we've talked a lot about different approaches to this. The one thing that we haven't really hit on here that I want to drive home a little bit is: I think a big issue that people face - the thing that I see plaguing my friends who I love - is actually believing not just that you can achieve the things that you want or the life that you want, but believing that you deserve it. And I think that until you actually reconcile that, it's really hard to achieve your goals.
Because if you don't believe that you deserve it, then there's a whole bunch of subconscious autopilot things in your brain that are maybe gonna work to sabotage your success and your achievements. I've just seen it happen so many times, and I've done it to myself too, where I get so anxious about sending the email. And then I just go like, “I don't want them to think I'm weird” and it's like, what? And like, the conversation I often have with myself around that is: Would I rather be seen as weird…
Amy: …than not be seen at all.
Hayley: Yep, pretty much, yeah. Like, would I rather be seen as weird and have the opportunity to be considered for something? Sometimes I need to be left-brained about this. If I don't put myself up for an opportunity, I have 0% chance of getting it. If I put myself up for the opportunity, it can be variable what the percentage chance is that it actually works out, but there is a chance, so that's better than the alternative.
I think a lot of women feel fear of taking up too much space, and I think that that's common, and so, I think just doing the work to sit with yourself and believe that you deserve the life you want is really valuable.
And, you know, that sounds really broad, but honestly, the best thing I've found to tackle that is to take the actions. Because self-love is action, you know, like you can think about things as much as you want, but actually doing the thing that's scary because you think it will benefit you, or putting yourself out there and knowing that you might be seen as weird or whatever - that actually contributes, that puts the coin in the piggy bank for “I love myself and I'm making choices that reflect my values and what I really truly want in this life.”
Amy: Yeah, and it's self-perpetuating, too. Because the more that you put yourself out there and do brave things and make the scary choice, the more you can look back and say, “Well, of course I deserve this, because look, I've done this, this, this, and this to get there.” And the truth is that you deserve all the wonderful things coming your way just simply by virtue of existing and being a person in the world. But sometimes it's helpful to frame it in that way.
I also think it's helpful to develop a growth mindset around goal setting and around failure. ‘Cause it's easy - like I said, it's easy when things don't go well to just shut yourself down and say, “Well, I'm not gonna do that again.” And then, like you said, you have a 0% chance of achieving the things you want. Whereas, if you develop a growth mindset around it, then you can learn from what's not gone well and use it to move forward. And have tools in this, have partners in this. If you can afford it, go to therapy, if you have access to it.
Hayley: Recruit your friends, don’t do it alone.
Amy: Get a career coach. Talk to someone who is trying to build their career coaching business and see if you can do a free or cheap session with them. Use your resources. Don't go it alone. You got this.
Hayley: Yeah. I believe in all of you and all of you achieving the things that you want. I think that you just have to believe that you can, and then set up systems to actually go and do that. I think that the operationalizing of the goals is as important as dreaming them up. But don't miss the opportunity to dream them up. Do dream, do spend time with that.
Amy: Let's go achieve some goals, Women & Theatre community. Let's set some goals and let's achieve them. We got this.
Hayley: Crush them. Love you.
Amy: Love you!
(Musical transition)
Amy: Before we run, we are doing our Trailblazer of the Week segment, in which we uplift the people who inspire us. It can be people we know or people we don't, whoever's lighting us up these days. So, Hayley, who is your Trailblazer of the Week?
Hayley: My Trailblazer of the Week is actually two. So it's going to be Trailblazers this week, but I want to uplift Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, because I recently saw the Wicked movie with my cousins, and it was just really special.
But specifically, I want to highlight the two of them, because I think there was an alternate universe where the two of them were competing for being the center of attention in this really big moment for both of them. And instead, they've chosen to love and support one another and uplift each other at every possible opportunity. And I think that they're just doing such a beautiful job modeling what it looks like to support other women and to show that there isn't a scarcity, actually. Like, we can both be the center of attention here, and we can both uplift each other.
And I just think that that's so beautiful. And I'm glad that young women, as they see this film, are going to also get to see the two of them acting this way. So I just want to uplift them both.
Amy: Yay!
Hayley: Also, I just, I love the movie, and it made my little inner theatre kid so happy. And… yeah.
Amy: That makes me so happy to hear, Hayley, because that's one of the things that I love so much about Wicked the musical - just like, showing this love story between these two women, this, like, sisterhood love story. And it's still really rare to see that on stages, to see women just like, unconditionally loving and supporting each other and all of the complexity that goes into that. It's really special. Yay.
Hayley: Yeah, it rocks. How about you?
Amy: My Trailblazer of the Week is a former Women & Theatre interviewee, Gayle Seay. When we spoke to Gayle a couple of years ago, she had just taken over as the artistic director at STAGES St. Louis. And, we had an incredible conversation with her about all of the visions and dreams that she had for this space and for her new role as artistic director.
And I have been fortunate enough to spend some time at STAGES recently, and it is just… When I tell you, like, I have spent a lot of time at a lot of different regional theatres around the country. And they're all wonderful in their own ways. When I tell you that STAGES St. Louis is a place where every single person who works there, top to bottom, is absolutely excellent at their job and so incredibly happy to be there. Like, their joy emanates off of them, their joy in their work. And that is very much because of what Gayle and her partner Andrew are doing there.
And it is just, it's incredible. It is #goals for me. Like, I would love to run a theatre one day, and that is how I would love to run it. So, my Trailblazer of the Week is Gayle Seay, who is doing amazing work over in St. Louis.
Hayley: Yay. Shout out to Gayle, I hope you're listening!
Well, since we're about to run, I just want to take a moment to hype you up, Amy. Because I see you putting so much work into juggling all of the different things that you want out of your life. And I see you scheduling out the wazoo and like, blocking your time off and doing everything you can to like, prioritize all of the things that you value and all the things that are important to you. And I just think that that's really cool, so good for you.
Amy: Thank you. Yay! I want to hype you up because of all of the hard work that you've been putting in on this project, on Women & Theatre. I know that you have a lot of competing priorities in your life these days, and a lot of like, really exciting, shiny opportunities coming your way, and I'm really thrilled for all of that. And I'm thrilled that within all of that, you are finding space for our sweet little project that I love so much. I really appreciate you as a collaborator, and I love the way we work together. So that's why I'm hyping you up today.
Hayley: Love you. Fabulous! Okay, well, I hope you have a wonderful day, Amy, and I hope you have a wonderful day, listeners. Stay warm out there. It's getting cold outside. Get a cozy beverage. Do something for yourself today.
Amy: Do it. All right, we'll see you next time. Bye!
(Music)
Hayley: Thank you for listening to the Women & Theatre Podcast. We’re your hosts, Hayley Goldenberg…
Amy: …and Amy Andrews! If you like what you heard, subscribe and give us a 5-star review wherever you listen.
Hayley: You can also follow us on social @womenandtheatreproject to make sure you never miss an episode.
Amy: The music for this show was written by talented Women & Theatre community member Chloe Geller.
Hayley: Thanks again for listening, everyone. See you next time!
Amy: Bye!
