A recurring theme for everyone I know who does improv with the sincere desire to improve is dealing with the crises of confidence. As I've mentioned before, the learning "curve" is really more of a zig-zag, and sometimes when you've hit a plateau and gotten stuck there for a while, or when you've taken a downward turn for some reason or other, it can affect your confidence. The only thing to do then is to stick it out, keep working at it and try not to let it get you trapped in your head. The more you can just accept, "Oh well, I suck right now" and keep pushing yourself - without beating yourself up for it, judging yourself for it or dwelling on it - the faster you'll get out of it. The challenge I'm confronting now isn't a crisis of confidence, it's an identity crisis. This goes back to the idea of labels, and how I have labeled myself through my life - as well as how I've allowed others to label me - and the difficulty in throwing off those labels and accepting new ones. A very simple example is the fact that I consider myself a blonde. I was one of those kids with real light hair that got darker as I got older until, by high school, I had very dark brown hair. But I never "felt" like a brunette, even though that's clearly my natural state. So, for most of my adult life, I've gone back and forth between brown and blonde because, though I prefer blonde, I sometimes feel obligated to try and be "natural." Like somehow, deciding to be blonde is being fake.
Actually, deciding to be blonde is just giving myself a label. I had to work to overcome my natural shyness, but I don't feel obligated to continue to be shy because it was my original state of being. So why do I feel apologetic for liking my hair light instead of dark? Like I said, the hair thing is just a simple example - I'm not that hung up on my hair. It's just an example of how we get stuck with these labels.
I think part of the reason we as humans get stuck in a rut, or get trapped being something we don't want to be or what have you, is that we think labels mean forever. If you've been labeled shy or outgoing or bitchy or smart or whatever, there's a tendency to hold on to that label even in the face of clear evidence to the contrary. So then there's an internal fight between who you were and who you are, and plenty of people who aren't you have some vested interest in you staying the way you were, because that's the person they [think they] know. Sometimes the label was never true, it was just a mask you put on or a perception others had and somehow it stuck.
I know in real life, changing the way you see yourself and the way everyone else sees you is much more difficult than just throwing out a label like, "I'm the bravest chick EVAH!" in an improv scene. But overcoming improv challenges gives you courage and clarity and you can apply those in every area of your life... that's kinda why we call it "improv for life," peeps.
By Sonnjea Blackwell
