Frustrated with your comedy career? That's a good thing!

If you're in any kind of industry where it takes time to get ahead and be successful, you're probably going to feel like it isn't coming fast enough, or that you may never get there.  That's typical.

It's especially typical in comedy, where you start out playing stages for free, hoping to eventually get paid.  Once you start to get paid, you want a TV show.  Okay, I skipped a step or two, but it seems to be where most of us go in our heads rather quickly.

Everything we do is designed to get to the next step, get paid more money, be discovered, etc.; and it never seems to come fast enough.  It tends to be doubly frustrating when someone you know, someone you've worked with, moves up in the comedy world...especially if the comic started out around the same time you did.

Jane got into an A-room.  John has a network looking at his screenplay.  Sally has a one-woman show getting bookings all over.  Bob is going to be on TV.  Sparky and Cupcake are in a movie.

Yay for them and ugh for you, right?  It's natural to feel both happiness for the person's success, and jealousy, depression and frustration for your lack of a break.  If you don't like the person, it's natural just to be pissed off.

 - Lewis Black, frustrated, in general, but probably not about his career

There's good news in that frustration, however.  Frustration is a sign of growth.  It's a signal that you're not happy with the status quo.  If you were happy to just be the MC in your hometown, once a month club, then you wouldn't be frustrated with others' success.  The fact that you want to move upward is the source of that frustration, and that's good.

So, how do you use that frustration to your advantage?  The first step is to not allow it to be a disadvantage, but we'll get to that shortly.

For the purposes of this post, I'd like you to know I spent more than ten years in sales, sales training, coaching and speaking.  I've studied under some of the best in the business and have coached and spoken to literally thousands of goal oriented business people.  I was also a top producing real estate agent for more than 5 years before I left for coaching.  In other words, I have a background in what I'm about to tell you.

Now, back to using frustration as an advantage.

The worst thing you can do is focus on your competition (any, or every, other comic) and wallow in frustration at their perceived successes.  I'm not even talking about big successes.  Be honest, you get pissed off when someone books a fundraiser gig near you that you weren't aware of, or gets into a club you don't have access to, don't you?

Very few of us can get far on spite, the rest of us get bogged down by it.  What I mean is, wanting to be more successful than your fellow comedy class graduate, or a mean comic you were on a show with, typically isn't that strong of a motivating factor, even for those who thrive on that.  It's outside motivation, and is negatively charged, which isn't good for you.  What happens if this target of yours falls down along the way, or you surpass them?  Then what?  Your motivating factor is suddenly gone, leaving you with nothing to drive you.  Now you have find someone else to hate.  Not good.

And, really, let's be brutally honest with ourselves.  Are we working as hard as we can be?  Are we writing a lot?  Do we reach out to bookers on a regular basis?  Are we going to open mics?  Are we doing the things we know we SHOULD be doing in order to move ahead?

Many times we'll find we're just comfortable bitching, moaning and pointing our fingers at other comics or bookers, or we have "good" excuses, to justify why we're not moving forward the way we would like.

We really need to focus on OURSELVES, and not our competition...but, that's a trick because when we DO focus on ourselves, we tend to think we're not good enough, we haven't gotten far enough, we never will, etc.

So, here's a trick to trick the tricker.  I really have no idea what that just meant, but go with me here.  A great way to really feel good about yourself, and where you are, is to look at where you were.  Look back a year, or three, or five.  Look back to when you started in comedy, and realize, and marvel, yes, marvel, at how far you've come since then.

Did you crack clubs this past year that you hadn't before?  Did you do more solid, good time in a set than you ever have?  How about those three new killer bits you added to your set?  Did any club or booker bump you up a spot?  What firsts have you accomplished?

You really have come a long way and you need to appreciate yourself for your accomplishments.  If this year looked painfully just like last year, then go back for a longer period of time.  And, honestly, you probably need to step up your game (we'll discuss that in my next post); but that's a good thing since you're already frustrated, and, therefore, not happy with the current state of things.

 “Most people quit because they look how far they have to go, not how far they have come.”
― Ziad K. Abdelnour, author and financier

It's been said you should look back for inspiration and look ahead for motivation.  In Part 2 of this post, I'll discuss constructive ways to look ahead that will motivate you to move forward.

You'll just have to be the one to put them into action.  And you should probably be funny; I've heard that helps a little in comedy.

Click here for Part 2: Get Real in the Present