The Tune-Up: Day Five

What are your *actual* career goals?

I want to ask you something and I want you to answer it honestly.

What is your career goal?

If the answer is anything like “I want to be a full-time working voice actor” or “I want to make more money in VO” or “I want to get an agent”… all of those make sense as things you want but… those are not goals. They’re wishes.

A goal has a number. A goal has a date. A goal has a specific action attached to it that you can complete and measure and know that you did it. Things with real measurable actions and results.

Today in the last day of the Tune-Up, I am walking through the SMART goal framework applied specifically to voiceover, a reverse engineering template for the next ninety days, and the priority action matrix that tells you what to work on first when everything feels equally urgent. You’ve heard me talk about SMART goals a ton here and it’s not without reason—-they fuckin’ work.

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“I want to make more money.”
“I want to land a commercial.”
“I want a AAA video game.”
“If I had an agent, everything would fall into place.”

Here’s why those aren’t goals.

“Full-time working voice actor” means something completely different to everyone who says it. To one person it means two thousand dollars a month and creative freedom. To another it means six figures and to be in the Union. To another it means they just want to quit their day job, any day job, for any amount. All of those are legitimate!! None of them are goals.

Goals require specificity. They require a number, a date, a specific action that you can complete, measure, and know that you did. Guessing about your accomplishments isn’t exactly helping anyone. “I want to be full time” is the destination without an address. You can’t build a route to a destination without an address!

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The SMART framework

So let’s break down the acronym one more time. Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-Bound. These will HELP YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT TO DO so you never have to say, “what do I do next?!”

Specific: what exactly are you trying to do? Not a category. A thing. Not “book more commercial work.” How many auditions per week? On what platforms? In which markets? By when?

Measurable: can you track whether you did it? Hint: If you can’t count it or complete it, it’s not measurable.

Achievable: do your current materials, skills, and available hours actually support this goal? Or did you set it based on where you want to be rather than where you currently are?

Relevant: does this goal actually move you toward the career you described? Or is it busy work that feels productive?

Time-bound: what is the date? Not someday but a specific date on a specific calendar.

The transformation

Now let’s put it into practice.

Vague: “I want to be full-time in voiceover.”

SMART: By October 1st I will have sent direct outreach to twenty commercial production companies, followed up with ten of them, booked two new direct clients, and generated one thousand dollars in income outside of casting platforms.

Same destination but with a completely different path that is specific and is one that you can actually work backward from. With this, you can actually plan build a week of work around. This tells you EXACTLY what to do tomorrow morning which, is something that stops a lot of actors in their tracks.

The ninety-day reverse engineering template

Take your SMART goal. Write it at the top of a page. Now work backwards. Ask:

What has to be true by month three for the goal to be reachable?
What has to be true by month two for month three to be possible?
What has to be true by month one for month two to be possible?
What do I have to do this week for month one to be on track?
What do I have to do today?

THAT’S YOUR PLAN!!! Not a list of things you want but a real sequence of things that have to happen in order. If you work backwards from the goal to today, you will almost always find that the first action is smaller and more specific than you expected. That’s a good sign. Specific small actions are the ones that actually get done.

The priority action matrix

When everything feels equally urgent, use this to decide what to work on first. Ask two questions about each item on your to-do list. Is this high impact? Meaning, if I do this, does it move me meaningfully closer to my goal? Is this time-sensitive? Meaning, does it need to happen now or does it just feel like it needs to happen now?

High impact and time-sensitive: do this first, today.
High impact and not time-sensitive: schedule this for this week, block the time.
Low impact and time-sensitive: delegate, delay, or do it fast and move on.
Low impact and not time-sensitive: take it off the list entirely.

Most voice actors spend most of their time in the bottom two quadrants. The work that builds careers lives in the top two.

Your one commitment

You’ve had five days and I’ve given you five specific things. Some of them you already did. Some of them you wrote down and haven’t done yet. Some of them landed and some of them did not. That’s ok. But before you close this tab I want you to write down one thing:

Something specific that you will do before next Friday. Send the pitch you wrote on Day Three. Fix the demo placement you identified on Day One. Write your SMART goal and put it somewhere you will see it every day.

One thing. Specific. With a day attached to it. The gap between knowing and doing is where careers die. You now know. So. go do.

ON THE CALENDAR THIS MONTH:

🎙THE AUDITION EXPERIENCE SUMMER COHORT IS OPEN FOR ENROLLMENT! In this 2 week role-playing experience, you will be exposed to various types of copy from commercial to interactive, medical to political and more. You’ll receive 3-5 auditions a day and feedback at the end of the two weeks. Grab your spot now! https://www.astoriaredheadvoiceover.com/the-experience