When Rehearsal Kills Performance
Are you hiding your potential behind a very busy and productive identity?
Glee Club
Mr Sperry pinched his fingers, horizontally swiped them through the air in front of him, and bowed his head. Nine of us teenage boys, young men, stood expectantly in the silence, the memory of the last note hanging in the air. We held the breath that moments ago we wove together to create an original a cappella composition of Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind.” The youngest tenured math professor at Harvard had created the piece for our small group, dubbed “The Latonics.” Over the past few weeks, we had prepared, navigating the complex syncopated parts. Each part sounded incomplete, but when sung together created a moving landscape of symphonic art. In the green room outside a concert hall with an unfamiliar audience, where we had just done our final rehearsal, we waited.
“Oh no,” said Mr Sperry.
And our hearts fell.
“That… that was perfect.”
Mr Sperry then told us that “nothing foretells a great performance than a shitty rehearsal, and we had just landed a perfect rehearsal.” The curtain was about to go up, the bar of our potential now raised, and all that was left was the performance.
Avoidance Preparation
High school has non-negotiable performance dates, final exams and glee club concerts. Your life and work does not. There’s a lot to be said for preparing, prototyping, and getting the work in front of you done. This can be a good life. But in our house, far from the high-school years, we don’t settle for good enough.
People come to me when they’re ready for their next chapter, knowing it will require them to become someone different from who they’ve been before. One client went from Director to Owner, others want to go from gallery artist to gallery owner, or hobbyist to professional. Each transition requires a change in identity, and this takes intention, time, and space.
In every case, all the work and what you’ve built in the past can be seen as a rehearsal. It requires some intention and courage to see it that way, and the sense of loss that comes with it.
Honestly, it’s much easier to put off that work, and we have great excuses. As adults, we have full lives that keep us busy. Staying busy at one level naturally compresses the time you need to work towards the next, or even to imagine it. That’s almost always the reason given: time, not enough of it. You have deadlines, shows, another job, family and other obligations. Staying productive is productive, but it’s protecting you from the vulnerability of expanding who you are.
It’s easier to shine in the green room than perform on stage.
It’s hard to spot because it’s not made up. One of my clients had an opportunity to show at an event where he knew there would be lots of eyes on his work. He told me how he was going to settle. He would cobble together drawings and old work rather than create new and exciting pieces because he had another job and family obligations. He went so far as to lay out his weekly schedule to “prove” there was no room. He was right, he was busy.
But the real challenge was seeing himself on the other side of the opportunity. He still saw himself as someone who slapped things together, and not the artist who slam-dunked a new show.
We changed that through identity work. Identity work can get you out of the green room and onto the stage.
Why This Happens
When you stay busy, you’re protecting an old identity. By not looking forward, you get to avoid:
Exposure and Judgment
If you really try for a new thing, you might be judged by others.Desire and Shame
If you say what you want, you might be shamed by others.Success and Responsibility
If you swing and knock it out of the park, you’ve raised the bar.
But what about you? By staying busy, you’re essentially hiding and robbing yourself of your own fulfillment.
My client had a chance to make a new body of work and show his potential, and almost threw it away because of a story.
What it Costs
There are external costs like delayed projects and lost/wasted time.
The internal costs are much, much higher:
Eroded confidence
Inside, you know what you want and how long you’ve put it off, even if you tell no-oneIdentity
You can feel the gap between who you really are and how you show upTrust
You begin to lose trust in yourself, and maybe others do too
Most importantly, you lose your bias toward action. You become “someone with potential,” who doesn’t reach for it. And that story gets harder to undo.
What to do Instead
When you feel like you’re too busy to create the next chapter, ask “What am I protecting?”
Name where you’re hiding. In our last community call we did this as an exercise and the answers were not just “at work.” It’s been said that how you do anything is how you do everything. Because we did this as a group, I got to notice that the way I hide professionally can be seen in how I show up in my non-work relationships too.
Name what you’re afraid will happen. Negative visualization is a powerful tool when you ask “then what?” If the worst case scenario comes to pass, what would you suggest someone in your shoes does then? Naming this fear and this plan makes things much more doable.
Finally, do what I call “one notch more visible.” Find a small thing you can do that is a step toward the “new.” Could be telling one person about the project you want to create, or the job you’d like to get, or the life change you think could be good for you.
This last step has to be small enough to be doable, and personal enough to matter to you.
Remember my client from earlier? He told his wife and work that he wanted to change his schedule, that he had a plan for still delivering on his workload and still have time at home, and that was creating some protected time to work on his new art.
I had the pleasure of seeing him at the show. He and his wife were both beaming in front of a wall of new paintings. That’s what I mean by deep impact. Being your potential creates joy for you and others around you.
Ok, but is there an easier way?
Well, sort of. At the end of the day, you have to do your life, nobody can do it for you.
But people who have worked with me have said “that one session changed my life” and “I’ve completed projects that were once just a dream.”
There’s no “trick,” just the willingness to put some skin in your game.
That’s why for the next week, if you’re one of the first 10 people to sign up for our Creative Launch course, I’ll gift you a 1-1 coaching session. This isn’t just a friendly conversation. I will support you and challenge you to think bigger and take action to solve your unique puzzle for what’s next for you.
This offer goes away after March 3!