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VOICE OVER CAREER
Overwhelmed When Setting Voice Over Career
Goals? These Four Simple Steps Get You Going

By Sally Clawson
Voice Actor, Teacher
& Owner, Voice One

Setting and achieving goals along the path of your voice over career can sometimes feel overwhelming.

Here are four simple steps to ease the overwhelm and help you get the ball rolling.

Step One: Make Your Goals Actionable

Let's imagine that one of your goals for the year is to get a talent agent. This is a great aspiration, but some of this goal is out of your hands.

For instance, the talent agent decides whether or not to sign you, so that piece isn't within your control.

However, applying to talent agents is something you can actually do, which makes the goal actionable and achievable.

If you say "I'm going to book six jobs," that's not going to be as actionable as committing to doing 60 auditions, and hopefully booking six jobs from those auditions. That is a goal you have control over.

Step Two: Use Baby Steps

Baby steps mean BABY steps - itty-bitty, teeny, little baby ones.

If you are going to apply to an agent, one baby step could be to look up that agent on the web. That's it! That's your baby step.

Another could be to ask your friends which agents they recommend. That's all!

Breaking down your goals into teeny-tiny steps make them manageable.

So take the baby step to look them up on the web, check out that ONE talent agent (yes, you want to apply to a bunch, but just do one), and then decide what your next baby step will be right after you've finished your first one.

Step Three: Give Yourself a Timeline

A timeline will hold you accountable, so give yourself 72 hours for the baby step.

You might think, "are you crazy?! Don't we need to have 5-year or 10-year goals?!"

No, 72 hours. It's a baby step. You can do it in 72 hours, easy peasy! Give yourself just three days to look up a talent agent on the internet. And then with the next baby step, give yourself 72 hours again.

See how it goes, challenge yourself.

Step Four: Stay Curious

You don't have all the answers, so instead, be interested. Dig in and find out.

Say to yourself:
  • "I'm curious which talent agent I would work best with," or
  • "I'm curious which talent agent would help me get the kind of work I'm looking for," or
  • "I'm curious how many voices sound like mine on this talent agent's website."
You aren't pursuing your career with a one-size-fits-all approach or with a perfect step-by-step guide.

Staying curious prevents the goal from becoming a mandate, and helps you stay kind and true to yourself as you move forward.

There are few bigger blows to our morale than feeling like we haven't achieved the goals that we set for ourselves. These four simple steps will start you on your way to accomplishing them with ease and a clear head.

Happy VO Goal Achieving!
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ABOUT SALLY
Sally Clawson is an award-winning voice over, on-camera and theater actor, as well as certified executive coach through the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business. She has over 20 years of experience as a voice teacher, and in 2018, became owner of Voice One, the leading voice over school in San Francisco. Voice One offers a comprehensive voice over training program, both in-person and online, for everyone from the novice to the professional.    



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