VO Mindset: Closing the Feedback Loop

Maintaining creativity and momentum in our VO workflow remains a key challenge. Last week I wrote about how all skills can be seen as transferable skills. While specifics may change, each fact or technique learned over the years reemerged to inform a later process. Acknowledging that can help maintain momentum to help us move forward.

There’s a second truth I’ve come to believe: few things are ever great out of the gate. Initial efforts usually appear a little forlorn in the first light of day. It falls to us to nudge things forward and polish the rough spots. 

Putting those ideas together, it becomes apparent that we are not static elements in that process. Every action changes us. We are learning machines blessed with the ability to react to events and adapt. The process improves us in addition to that which we focus upon.

The process also depends upon getting stuff out the door. That’s a place where we often get hung up. Anywhere that skill and experience matter there’s a great tendency to try to give it one more go. Another iteration. One more take. The danger occurs when the desire to make things better translates into failure to send that audition, or simply not reaching out to a potential client. It’s not “perfect” in our eyes, so it stays under wraps.

So, how can we gain confidence to send things off because that is the best we can do right now?

Perhaps recognize that this might be our best effort. I’m certainly not saying to give a “Pass” to shoddy work. But if we focus on strong, specific choices, move away from “kinda/sorta” efforts, and let ourselves commit to the moment, that’s likely to give us a pretty strong result. Send it off. 

Regardless of whether it books the job or not, there’s one more step in the process: schedule time to go back and evaluate your work in the cold light of day. I find a one or two week gap is helpful to let me listen with a more unbiased ear. Look for trends and give yourself some actionable things to work on moving forward. A coach, mentor, or VO peer group can be key in providing an outside perspective here. That can also keep you from becoming too overconfident, or the reverse, overwhelmed by negative thoughts.

Simply chunking out X number of auditions each day without that reality check means you just end up doing the same thing and hoping for different results. The evaluation is a critical step in growth. Closing that feedback loop is important. It lets us get a little better today, so we can be a lot better going forward.

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