With the new year getting started there are goals to be made and achieved. I feel more determined than ever to work harder than I ever have towards all my dreams and personal goals. Mostly because I’m finally approaching a time in my life where I can really focus on shaping and making the life that I have always wanted for myself.
Working towards my goals has never been a problem. Really, it’s been the level of commitment that I have been able to dedicate to my goals. I’m the type of person who is constantly making goals in life. Personal goals, professional goals, any kind of goal that would help me get to where I want to be in life, and make my life be more fulfilling, I’m making them every chance I get.
Due to this I have been molded into the type of person who commits to something and sees it through.
Now, I want to start out by saying this is not a bad thing. In fact, it’s actually a really good, positive habit to have. Being able to commit to something and see that commitment through until the end is the true definition of a hard worker. By committing to something, and then holding yourself accountable to that commitment, you are shaping your own personal work ethic.
And having a strong, reliable work ethic will get you far in life. Trust me, there is nothing more satisfying than working with someone who is dependable.
But back to working towards my goals. I’m committed to making 2017 be the year that I really hone in and focus on making my dreams a reality. I’ve waited a very, very, very long time to get to this point in my life and now that I’m here I just want to dive right into it all!
The hard and sometimes very frustrating thing about this, is that I have so many dreams!
So many things that I want to do with my life. So many things that I want to accomplish. So many ways I want to make my mark the on the world and leave behind a positive legacy for the world to know about. But nothing great comes easy and instantly. Every day is a constant reminder that I have to work hard and commit to all the beautiful things that I want in life.
And this year will be no different. This year I will be facing head on the dream that I have been chasing my whole life. The dream that never died no matter how many times I was taken away from it. The dream that jump started the creativity that I have, helped me hold tight to the kid that continues to live inside me, and the reason why I do everything that I do.
This year I really want to commit to my acting career. And that commitment begins now!
Gosh this is so hard and emotional for me to talk about because it’s literally the only thing that I have ever wanted in my entire life. To be able to perform, make movies, and star on TV shows is my ultimate dream.
I believe it’s important to speak out loud the things that we want in life, because in doing so we to some extent hold ourselves accountable to making it happen. My mother always says we have to speak the things we want into existence.
I’ve known ever since I was around six years old that I wanted to be an actress. I knew that I wanted to make people smile, cry, laugh, and feel all kinds of emotions through acting. I’ve known what I’ve wanted to do with my life since I was a little girl, and here I am now in my young adulthood and that dream and passion is still very much alive in me.
And I’m still very determined to make it happen.
I can recall many years (more like three very specific years) in my early adolescence trying to get my parents to pack the whole family up and move out to California so that I could pursue a career in acting. Of course, for financial reasons that was unable to happen, so naturally I came up with an alternative to moving.
See, even then I was willing to be flexible.
I had an uncle who was in the military and at the time was stationed out in California. When I turned eleven we went out to California every summer, to spend the summer with him and his wife. Since packing up and moving was not an option, my alternative was to spend the summers we went to California auditioning.
This was not flying over with my pops.
He stressed the importance of spending time with my uncle, especially because he was in the military and we didn’t get to see him that often. Out of respect I chose to not press the issue of breaking away from schedule to go on auditions, but every year, from the first day of school until the very last, I begged my parents to let me go on auditions.
I begged them to let me chase and live out this dream so much so, that I’m 98% positive my ranking as the “favorite” dropped more and more every second of every minute of every day.
This happened every year until I turned thirteen, when my uncle got stationed elsewhere.
As I’m sure you can imagine my summer LA dreams and goals did not happen, but I didn’t give up. Yes, I got discouraged, very discouraged, but I didn’t give up.
Instead I turned to drama class in school. Starting in the7th grade, and every year until my sophomore year in high school I took drama class. And I loved it because I was in my world. The world of passion and creativity. The world where you bring a character to life and people actually appreciated your ability to do so.
The world I so desperately wanted to be a part of.
Naturally this just fueled my hunger to be a part of the entertainment industry that much more. I craved the adrenaline rush, and the endless sensation of making movies and TVs shows.
But at the time I only had drama class. My acting never really expanded outside of drama class for the simple fact that I was extremely shy growing up! I was too shy to audition for plays so I never did. Plus, my parents also had high expectations for me in maintaining good grades, and I feared that my passion and commitment to the performing arts would outweigh my determination to maintain good grades.
Needless to say, I chose to focus more on school than making an acting career because I knew it was what my parents wanted. They supported me in my dream of wanting to become an actress, but not the level of support that I secretly wanted. Instead it was more so along the lines of “chase your dreams, you can be anything you want to be, but do it on your time not mines.”
Which I guess was fair given that they were raising four children while also living paycheck to paycheck.
During my sophomore year in high school, the combination of my social anxiety, my extreme level of shyness, and the pressure I felt to maintain good grades, I decided to stop taking drama class. The decision was like taking a hot knife straight to my heart. At the time I knew it was the right thing to do, but I also felt like a huge part of me had died.
Right after high school I decided to go straight to college. Prior to high school my plan had always been to graduate and then move out to California to pursue an acting career. But I think the older I got the more I realized that life is a lot harder than what it seems when you are younger because, you have mommy and daddy tackling all the hard things in life, to keep your life as comfortable as they possibly can.
So, that was no longer the plan.
Instead, I decided I would go to college for two reasons. One, I had fallen in love with the world of psychology and really wanted to explore that world a little bit more while I was young. Two, I understood that everyone had dreams of being a star, (“everyone wants to be a star, star.” I’m currently obsessed with the new TV series Star, have you seen it? It’s so relatable!), and I was no different. However, there have been, are, and will always be people who get a shot at acting opportunities and just can’t make a successful career happen.
I didn’t want to be one of those people.
I have complete confidence in my ability to perform, but I wanted to take precaution. In case I didn’t find the success that I hope for in this industry I wanted to make sure that I had something solid to fall back on. Something that I was truly passionate about and wouldn’t mind making a career out of if I had to.
So, acting got put on hold in order for me to pursue a degree in psychology.
Flash forward (in this case back) after graduating college I decided to go to graduate school because I wanted to have complete control over the direction of my potential career. Making that decision has made it extremely hard for me to pursue my acting career while also staying committed to school.
But this year, in exactly 5 months, I will be graduating from graduate and school and officially done with school altogether! This means that I will be able to focus and pursue my acting career full-time, and with complete dedication to be able to do so.
And I can’t tell you how happy this make me feel.
The hardest thing about starting off a new year for me is having to re-evaluate all of my goals. I literally make so many goals they almost seem impossible to accomplish! I’m able to accomplish a couple throughout the year, but not all of them. The ones that don’t get accomplish rollover into the new year.
When that happens they usually expand or have been added on to in some way. Which means my original game plan has to be altered. Needless to say, my dream goals were the goals I was not able to accomplish last year because school was just a bigger priority for me, and I ran into some financial bumps.
But this year will be different. This year will be the year my younger self has been looking forward to her whole life.
The year of acting.
So watch out world, I’m coming for you!
Until next time!
-Xo
Kimora