The Dive Podcast

32: From Nerves to Confidence: Your Pre-Audition Game Plan with Taylor Scanlan

• Season 2 • Episode 32

Share episode

GRAB HERE YOUR WORKBOOK: ✨ 5 EMPOWERING STEPS TO AUDITION CLARITY & CONFIDENCE ✨

In this episode, we dive into the often nerve-wracking world of audition preparation. Learn how to approach auditions with clarity, confidence, and a genuine sense of enjoyment. Taylor shares practical tips, mindset hacks, and actionable steps to help you feel more in control and excited about your audition experience.

Highlight:

  • Taylor's personal audition story and how she overcame the fear of the unknown.
  • Introduction of the free "Ultimate Audition Prep Workbook" designed to guide aspiring musical theatre performers through the audition process.
  • Key exercises to envision your best-case scenario, define clarity and confidence, and break down barriers holding you back.

What to Expect:

  • A breakdown of the workbook’s five essential steps, including envisioning success, defining clarity, and transforming actions into confidence.
  • Insights on how to shift your mindset from focusing on the outcome to embracing the process.
  • Practical advice on taking daily actionable steps to become the confident performer you aspire to be.

This episode is packed with actionable advice and resources to help you show up as your best self in every audition room.

Book Reference: Atomic Habits by James Clear

Here Are Your Next Steps 👇🏻

Step One: 📝Get your FREE Audition Prep Workbook

Step Two: 🫂 Join Free Facebook Support Group

Step Three: 👀 Check out the Momentum Program for aspiring MT performers looking to become professional

Step Four: 🎥 Watch our MOST DOWNLOADED Podcast Episode with Luca Dinardo

Speaker 1:

All right, welcome back to another episode. I'm super keen to be talking about audition prep, how to go into auditions with clarity, with confidence, with passion and with a sense of enjoyment. I know that auditions are sometimes super, super dreadful and you're like, oh, I don't know. It's just, there's something just non-humane about auditions. Right, we go in and we don't know what to expect. We're singing, we're expressing ourselves, and it all happens within a few hours and then you're done and you're like lying on the floor and you're like super exhausted. So I wanna help you not feel as much as that and actually feel as though you've got somewhat of a sense of control over what's going on, over what's happening in your body, what's happening in your mind, so that you can go in and not only feel clear and confident, but actually go in feeling excited, feeling ready to actually absorb the material and give it your best shot. So let's get into the episode. By the end of the episode, you're going to really have a clear picture of what clarity and confidence means for you and what it means to actually bring that to an audition. If you haven't already, you can go and check out a free resource that I created about a week ago called the Ultimate Audition Prep Workbook. This is going to be your step-by-step guide for aspiring musical theater performers looking to gain confidence and clarity in the audition process. So I'm going to be going through that workbook today, so if you haven't downloaded it, you can go into the show notes and click on it. Get it free right now, as we'll be talking about that guide. I wanted to really create this guide to help performers out there that are really struggling in auditions and feel free to comment in or message in.

Speaker 1:

Have you been feeling stressed, have you been feeling anxious about auditions? And, better yet, what do you want to feel? What are you aiming to go towards Like? Are you wanting to feel energized? Are we wanting to feel calm? Are we wanting to feel centered, like we know what we're capable of, we know what we can bring to the offer, to the stage, to the audition, and actually enjoy the process. Wouldn't that just feel good? Wouldn't that feel amazing? And it can definitely feel like that.

Speaker 1:

So when I was actually starting out in auditions, I didn't really know what to expect. I remember rocking up to one of the first auditions I did, which was for Cats, and I remember staying in the car going. Oh, I could totally just stay in the car and not go out and go into the auditions, and it was really strange because our bodies and our brains just want to protect us. It doesn't want us to like go into uncharted territory, so to speak. But I'm so happy that I just felt the fear and went into it anyway, because I then went and performed in this show for a very, very long time and it was one of my favorite shows, if not still my favorite show to do today. But it's super, super important to have those little mindset hacks, those things that can kind of give us that little boost of inspiration that doesn't come from the outside world, that it comes from within. So by the end of the episode, I hope to give you a little bit of that today and I'm excited to bring this workbook to you and to performers all around the world.

Speaker 1:

Let's get into it. So number one is about envisioning your best case scenario. So, straight away, we're hacking through the brain and we're focusing on exactly what we want to happen, because a lot of the time when we're going into auditions, because our brain and our body is trying to protect ourselves, it envisions the worst case scenario right? Maybe this has been true for you If you've gone into an audition or even a class and you may be thinking, oh, I'm no way going to get this show, or I'm not going to be great because of X, y and Z. Now, our beautiful brains and our bodies are so wonderful, but they can also be really not nice to us and can't help us in a lot of ways. So what we want to do is to hack into what we really want to have happen. That's the first exercise that we would do. So what this would look like is you would write down now you know, your best case scenario I've put in the workbook here. Imagine walking into your audition room feeling confident, feeling prepared, picture every single detail of your perfect performance, of how you sung, how you performed in the room, and really just start to write out what comes up.

Speaker 1:

Because what I've learned over the years and many performers I've connected with have said that you know we have a choice. We can either think negatively, we can either think that everything's going to go terribly wrong, or we can think the best case scenario. And if we have a choice, isn't it nicer to just think the best case scenario? And I know maybe you're thinking now, okay, taylor, let's think of the best case scenario. I do really well and I get into a show and it's an amazing like, yes, and what? Of course that's amazing. But sometimes maybe you're thinking, okay, if I think best case scenario, and what happens if I don't get in? Well, my challenge to you is maybe then thinking, okay, is it better that I went into it with a positive mindset and I actually felt good? I felt a little bit more confident, a little bit more calm than going into it feeling really anxious and really negative and down on myself. So sometimes it's not necessarily about the outcome, it's not really about the goal of getting into the thing. Ultimately, it's about becoming what you really want to have, and that is, you know that, confidence. It's about becoming someone who is confident, becoming someone who enjoys the audition process, because if we focus then on the process and the systems behind what we are doing, then you are able to live what you're actually looking for in the future. So I hope that makes sense.

Speaker 1:

There's a book that I'm reading at the moment Atomic Habits. I'll put a little photo here, maybe, of it. And yeah, definitely go check that out because it's really reshaping my frame of mind to really look at goals as not the end point. Really look at the process, what you're doing day to day to actually get to that goal, because if you just receive the goal, a lot of the time we just go back to our old habits. You know, if you think of a lottery winner that wins all this money, they say that 90% of these people end up coming back to the exact same salary that they were on because of their spending habits, their process and their systems. So that's the first number. And the first tool, or the first step rather, of the workbook, is to just write out best case scenario, write it out in detail and just explore. You know who is in the room, how do you feel? What feedback, what type of feedback do you receive? All right.

Speaker 1:

Number two define what clarity and confidence means for you. This is super, super important because sometimes in our brains and sometimes when we're in musical theater, we're very vague. We maybe don't think it, but sometimes I guess anything that you're trying to improve you really want to think of things in specifics. You've got to give yourself something really specific to actionably work on specifics. You've got to give yourself something really specific to actionably work on, and what I mean by this is if you're someone that maybe isn't a strong dancer and you're a strong singer, just by saying not strong and strong is very vague what you want to do. If you're going to actionably improve on something, you need to be specific in what you're not good at, because I doubt that you're terrible at every form of dancing Maybe you're really good at, because I doubt that you're terrible at every form of dancing. Maybe you're really good at style, but it's the ballet technique that you need to improve, or vice versa. So by getting really specific and really clear on what you're looking to improve, you not only highlight that area, but you actually really begin to understand what you're needing to improve and what that actually means for you. So in the second part of the work book, we go through and we really define okay, what does clarity and confidence look like for you? Because that is going to be different for absolutely everyone.

Speaker 1:

Number three is all about breaking down the barriers that are basically holding you back, because there is a few things maybe happening in your life right now where maybe you're saying, okay, taylor, I'm showing up, I'm doing the do, I'm doing the auditions and nothing just seems to be working. There's something I just feel like I'm on a feedback loop or something that is just like oh, I'm wanting to do. Well, I'm wanting to impress my agent, I'm wanting to do all these things. All these conversations I've been having with a lot of you in the community have been coming up, and I want to just bring some light to this third step, which is really identifying those barriers or challenges that are really holding you back. And nine times out of 10, it's actually what's happening in our brains or in our minds that are holding us back.

Speaker 1:

Because you can be the most talented performer singer, dancer, actor but if you don't believe that you are, or that you believe you have the capabilities to be in a show you don't believe worthy enough, or you don't believe that what you have to offer is good enough for that specific show or that genre you're going to tap out. You're going to tap out your skills. You're probably not going to perform as well, because what we actually tell ourselves every single day and who we surround ourselves with is really a reflection of our behaviors. That will happen. So I have a little three-step system to kind of going into this a little bit and the first thing you need to do is have a look at what is holding you back.

Speaker 1:

Just think, maybe right now is there a few things that are holding you back, is it one specific thing? And just take a look at that, and then the second thing you want to do is question its validity. So what I mean by that is ask like, are these barriers real? Is it something that is being just in the mind or is it something that is really occurring? By kind of questioning okay, you know if it's a barrier that, oh, I always do bad in auditions. You know if that's a barrier or a challenge. The question is it's validity Ask is that true? Am I always terrible? Or, if I am, what specific areas do you feel like you are terrible and what's reflecting back to you that's giving you that evidence?

Speaker 1:

Basically, by doing this and questioning your thoughts, you actually open kind of like a can of worms in the best way possible, because sometimes we are just so stuck on a habit or a way of thinking that we think the truth. So by questioning the way you are thinking, the way you are presenting, reflecting, really having a good look at yourself specifically, you're going to be able to progress much further. You're going to be much clearer headed and you're just going to be a little bit more authentic because you're actually acknowledging the specific things that you're wanting to improve on and wanting to move ahead on as well. The third step for that would then be to take action to actually overcome these steps. The number one thing we actually do is when we're not specific, we don't actually highlight what's going wrong, so we just kind of leave it in the dark and then we get to the next audition and we do the exact same thing. And when we do the exact same thing, we're just reiterating to that habit that we are that way.

Speaker 1:

So by being specific and really opening out, it's kind of like shining a spotlight on these potential barriers, asking is this real? And then taking an action step to actually progress it. You're like taking something that was maybe hidden in the dark, trying to hide from you, to actually super, getting it into the light and then bringing it up and being like actually no, we're not sleeping, we're not chilling out down there, let's go, we need to bring that up to the light. So, of course, when you're going through this if I'm speaking a little quick and actually let's just take a little breath and out. We always get excited on these podcast episodes and anytime I'm teaching and the coaching that we're doing currently in our Momentum program, which is our kind of like A to Z program of helping performers not only with your mindset, but we're defining what goals are for you and actually how to achieve them with actionable steps and then going into auditions and all that fun stuff. We're in our second month out of three, which has just been awesome and we've been getting such amazing advice and testimonies from the students inside. And we've just been awesome and we've been getting such amazing advice and testimonies from the students inside and we've just been building a really cool community. And if you want to check out a little bit more about that, I'll add a little link in the show notes too. But we also have a beautiful more offerings and programs coming out very soon with the dive. And, yeah, I just wanted to share this workbook because it's just one free resource out of many of resources and offerings that we are building and we're creating really for you as an artist to make sure that you are getting not only great advice but you're getting actionable steps to move forward.

Speaker 1:

Because when I was a little side note here I'm taking a little side trip that when I was starting out in my career, I really worked on myself. I was reading the books not at the start, trust me, but I was always looking for ways to improve myself, like the self, looking at ways that, okay, if this isn't working, how can I progress? And just finding little tools, little habits, little even from action things that people are doing in the industry. Just taking all these little things and adding it to your toolkit. And that's what I'm really hoping that the dive is going to bring you is that you may not resonate with everything that we talk about. You know may not resonate with every resource, but what I'm really hoping is that if you are an aspiring musical theater performer, all the things that we're giving out are actually going to resonate with you in a specific way, not only because I've been creating them and I've had the career so far, but I'm connecting with all of you as individuals and the conversations we're having, and not only with us one-on-one but as a community. It's just so cool and I'm really just bringing all of this information and resources to you free and all the other wonderful paid offerings as well.

Speaker 1:

So number four out of five is to transform the actions into confidence. There's nothing that will make you more confident in life by doing actions, by doing more of the actions of the thing. Think of it like this when was the last time you went into a class that you hadn't done in ages? Because maybe you've been thinking, oh, I'm terrible at it. And then you go do it and then you surprise yourself. You're like, oh, that actually wasn't so bad. Or maybe it's an audition that you did. You thought you were going to be terrible, but you've been practicing, you've been putting in the work on a specific song or your technique in dancing, so that when you went to the audition you weren't surprised and you actually had more confidence in it by taking action on the thing. Great. So I'm going to actually go through a beautiful statement that you can always ask yourself. I'm not going to go into depth. If you wanted to do that, you can download the workbook. It's all there for you.

Speaker 1:

But a simple question I want to ask you right now, as you're listening to this, is there is a version of you right now out there that is waiting for you to show up as your real self. There is a version of you if you can see it in your mind is there. It's waiting for you to show up as your best self. It's waiting for you to kind of honor all of what you can be. And so the one tool you can use right now to actually get closer to this ultimate best self or version of you is to ask yourself a simple question If I dot dot dot, how would I dot dot dot so this can be if I was a musical theatre professional that was on stage eight shows a week, creating a beautiful career and life for myself?

Speaker 1:

That's the dot dot dot, whatever it means for you. Put in your desired goal, how would I dot dot dot show up? How would I spend my days? How would I sleep? You can even go into the context of what would I eat. Who would I surround myself with?

Speaker 1:

By doing this statement, you're actually going to collect right now, actionable steps that you can use to start becoming the ultimate performer that you really want to be the confident, the clear-headed, the person who just wakes up calm and ready and energized, that doesn't feel overwhelmed, that doesn't feel pressured, that honors exactly where they are. This version of you is able to come into the light, and how we do that is by asking us that simple question. So just think right now. You know, if you're not driving or you're in a position where you can close your eyes safely, please do take a breath in and a breath out and just think to yourself right now. Okay, if I am putting your desired goal whether that's a musical theater professional, which many of us on here are wanting to be you're getting into your first musical, you've maybe got a lead role or you're in the ensemble, whatever it is for you. If I put that desired goal in there, just repeat that to yourself.

Speaker 1:

If I was, or if I am, so, so and so, then ask yourself, how would I show up today? What would I be doing? What's one thing I can do today that will help me become more like that person, more like that version of yourself that you're wanting so much? And then what you're going to do is you're going to take that one thing and just have that guide you. And something that I've been starting to do even myself and I love teaching things that I'm currently learning in my life as well is the power of one thing.

Speaker 1:

We're so overwhelmed with thinking that we need to do this massive amount of action to get a massive amount of results. But the real, true, honest action that you're waiting and looking for is in the day-to-day. It's in the 1%, it's in the showing up when you don't feel like it, it's in what's happening when no one is watching. So, whatever that 1% is for you, then you can start writing a calendar three days, seven days, 30 days just asking yourself with that one goal, what's one thing I can do today to progress towards becoming that person Not towards actually achieving the goal, but actually becoming the person. Because by actually becoming that person you're increasing longevity, you're increasing vitality in that area, whereas if the goal is only just to get into the show and you're not becoming that person, how quickly you're going to come out of that show? Quite fast because you're not actually being the person. Ultimately, that is going to stay there.

Speaker 1:

So you can take a little bit of that. There's in the exercise, in the workbook. It shows you exactly how to write all that out for yourself. Go take a look and then you know, with the number five of the workbook we do exactly that. We take, you know, the few things that have come up and actually how to create three actionable steps from that. So you can go and check out the workbook. It shows you how to create a statement of what actions to take from that goal to create it.

Speaker 1:

You know what's one thing I can do this month, what's one thing I can do this week, what's one thing I can do this month, what's one thing I can do this week, what's one thing I can do today, and I hope it's just giving you a little bit more clarity. It's an amazing workbook I put together over a course of months and it's just been awesome tool that I've also been using myself and along through my career to actually just go ahead and start mapping out what you're really wanting to become, what action steps are in alignment of who essentially you're wanting to become in the future. Because the fastest way to get there is to start becoming that person now and you know over time that progression is just going to build and then when you actually reach there, when you actually get into the musical, you're not going to be surprised. You're going to be excited, but you're not going to be surprised because you've started to actually become the person you ultimately wanted to be so many years ago. If you think of yourself right now, you are a version of past self that you once wanted to be, whether that's good or bad. Whatever you've put, your progress in the daily actions, the things that you've shown up in the choices you've made have got you to exactly where you are today.

Speaker 1:

So, by being really intentional, kind of a reflection of this episode as a whole, start to envision what your best self looks like.

Speaker 1:

Write out what does that person look like and really define if you're wanting to go into an audition with other things of clarity and confidence Maybe it's with energy, maybe it's with passion Really define what that is for you and start bringing that into your day-to-day life so that when the audition does come around, you're not overwhelmed, you're ready to go and you're ultimately living in a place where you're starting to build an awesome lifestyle around yourself that really promotes exactly what you're ultimately trying to become, which is that awesome performer, that musical theater performer that you're all seeking to become, that's clear-headed, that's confident.

Speaker 1:

Dot, dot, dot, whatever it means for you, and I'm just so excited to hear what you've come up with. So if you're anyone that's going through this workbook, you can again go check it out in the show notes, where you can write it out. Take your time to fill it out. We have some exciting things coming up with the dive, with other programs to give you more opportunities to do auditions, and some other exciting things along the way. I've just got my cat here, if you're watching in on the YouTube. Bye, darling, and we'll see you on the next episode. Feel free to check out our other resources at wwwthedivecomau, and if you found that this episode has helped you in some form or way, please share it with a friend, as we are all about connecting as a community and supporting one another. Until next time, I'll see you then.