Boost Your Emotional Intelligence To Increase Mastery Over Your Acting Career.

It’s difficult for an actor to master their acting ability and career until they have mastered their own thoughts and emotions through emotional intelligence.

High emotional intelligence is important to actors because actors need to know how to regulate their emotions and understand and develop the emotions of their characters. Actors also need to manage their own emotions as they deal with rejection and anxiety.

Research by Dr. Travis Bradberry reveals that emotional intelligence is the critical factor that sets star performers apart from the rest of the pack. The connection is so strong that 90% of top performers have high emotional intelligence.

In my own experience as a casting director, and celebrity acting coach for stars such as Oscar-winning Emma Stone, and former Glee star and world renowned Irish tenor, Damian McGinty, (to name a few) emotional intelligence is a critical factor in an actor's success.

Actors who are able to regulate their emotions don’t experience the same level of emotional distress that others do when they go through rejection or anxieties associated with the business. This is because these actors know how to manage emotions and prevent them from interfering with their performances. Instead, these actors are able to channel these emotions into their characters in an empathetic way.

This blog post will provide you with some quick tips on how you can boost your emotional intelligence so you too might find greater success as an actor!

1) Know What You Are Feeling And Why- Understanding what emotion you are feeling allows you to be more aware of your thoughts and it also helps you better understand what your character is feeling as well.

Try keeping a journal and write about your own life and feelings. What were some of your triggers for particular emotions and how did you regulate those emotions?

Can you expand your emotional vocabulary to fully describe your emotions within a particular situation or day?

 2) Become an excellent listener. Think about the best listener you know. You probably hold that person in high regard. Listening is a lost art that few people are interested in resurrecting.
 During your next conversation, notice what happens while you’re speaking. The other person might be bored, distracted, or simply waiting to speak.

 You’ll do much better with people and have fewer misunderstandings if you put all of your attention on the other person during a conversation.

In an audition, many actors are anxious to deliver their lines as quickly as possible and this causes them not to fully emote. This is because they're afraid of being rejected so they race through it without taking time for natural pauses that make a scene believable.

3) Develop self-awareness. Very few people are self-aware. We have little idea of how others perceive us or how we come across to them. Think about how odd it is to hear a recording of your own voice, or how you seem to look heavier in photos than you thought you were. Oh my, that’s only the beginning!

 You might be significantly more rude or obnoxious than you think. Maybe you’re dismissive to others and don’t even know it. Facing these misconceptions of yourself requires emotional maturity.

 Ask someone you trust what they think your biggest problem is. You may be surprised by what you hear. You might not like the answer, but knowing how others view you can lead to greater self awareness.

 4) React slowly. Think of all the times you wish you’d kept silent. Taking a moment to collect your thoughts can be a real advantage. You’ll save yourself a lot of grief if you give yourself the opportunity to respond wisely, or to not respond at all.

The characters that you play also pause. If you understand the science of acting, you understand how emotions develop and you won't be in such a hurry to deliver your lines. Instead, you will regulate your responses in an empathetic way.

 5) Learn how to motivate yourself. Life is easy if you can get yourself to do the things you know you should do. However, few of us are effective in motivating ourselves to do those things consistently.

 You can avoid most of the drama life has to offer if you can simply do the things that need to be done, when they need to be done.

 Consider why you procrastinate when faced with tasks that are unappealing to you. You’re going to have to do them eventually. Why not put yourself out of your misery as soon as possible and simply get them done?
 
 6) Be assertive. There are advantages to being assertive. You have a much better chance of getting what you want. You’ll also be more transparent to others. People won’t have to guess what you want from them.

Being assertive also means that you are comfortable enough in your own skin as a person to make bold choices for your characters. It can be to the actor's advantage to set themself apart in an audition or on set by making choices about their character's reactions that are more complex.

Confidence is always attractive and draws people to us. Assertive people make no aplogies and they tend to eventually get what they set their mind on.

 It’s difficult to make a career in acting without emotional intelligence. You can be the most intelligent, trained and talented actor but if you don't know how to manage your emotions it will become very hard for people to connect with what you are doing on stage or screen.

 How would you rate your emotional intelligence? In what areas could you improve? A great place to start is our Emotional Intelligency Test. Sometimes we think we are a certain way, only to find out from others that they don’t think we are that way at all. Emotional Intelligence testing is time-consuming and often expensive. I drew on my background as a communication expert and developed a simple 20 question self-scoring test you can take at home. Want to test yourself and see where you are currently?

Written by: Faith Hibbs-Clark, CMFA Founder