Tag: Goals

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My Comedy Mindset

I try to approach every time on stage as a learning experience and a step towards improving as a comedian.

I have two metaphors that I try to keep in mind, especially after a bad show. I thought I’d share them as maybe they’ll help someone else get through a tough patch in comedy or any other passion (or job) they have:

  1. Every performance is a brick in the wall of what will eventually become an amazing castle.
  2. I’m in the middle of a dense forest and can’t see around me. I have an axe, and instead of worrying about my situation, I need to just put my head down, get to work, and keep chopping. If I chop for long enough, I’ll get out of the woods. (I’m a huge Rutgers Football fan and I borrowed this metaphor from Coach Schiano.)

As much as I want to kill it at every show, this isn’t realistically possible at this stage of my career (although that’s still my goal every time). Therefore I view each show as a step towards the next one. One bad show won’t make or break my career  — although some shows are much more important than others in this respect.

Wanna try stand-up comedy yourself? I teach a Comedy Class in New York City. I also do private one-on-one comedy coaching (in-person or via Zoom).

More Stand-Up Comedy Tips:

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Comedy Goals for 2009

This past summer I tried writing down goals for the first time ever. I didn’t look at the list until a few days ago, and realized that I had managed to complete, or come close to completing, ALL of the goals I wrote down. I think it was in Finding Your North Star that the author wrote something like “There is something magical about writing down your goals. It’s as if by comitting it to paper, you’re much more likely to achieve them.” Since I’m more likely to lose paper than blog postings, without further ado, here are my comedy goals for 2009:

Performing:

  • Get on stage 150 times this year
  • Submit an entry to 2 comedy festivals / comedy contests this year
  • Perform at 3 college shows
  • Do 50 shows in front of a real (people that are not comedians) audience (barking for time counts for this)
  • Practice 10 minutes of my material outloud each day, without notes

Producing:

  • Start producing a recurring show

Writing:

  • Write 100 blog posts
  • Write (something, anything) every day
  • Write one spec script
  • Write 5 short sketches

Learning:

  • Take an improv class

Traffic & Marketing:

  • Get my facebook fan page up to 150 fans
  • Get 50 RSS Subscribers
  • Have 200 unique visitors a month to the blog
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