So you love your job?
Of course, we all love the concerts. We love the energy from the audience, the thrill from anticipation of going on stage, and the buzz from performing the best we can.
Would you say that you love the rehearsals just as much? We spend the majority of our jobs in this preparation phase, and it would behoove us to love that too.
In this post, I will pose many questions. There is so much power in asking questions and not knowing the answers right away.
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It's interesting to consider what motivates us in a performance compared to what motivates us in rehearsals. What are we thinking? What do we want? How do we feel? What do we say to ourselves?
In a performance, here are some possibilities:
We want to do our best work
We want to be inspired (and we want to inspire)
We don't want to embarrass ourselves
We want the audience to like our work and respect us
We want to have fun and enjoy ourselves
We want to feel important and to be seen
We feel excited, anxious, connected, hyper-aware, magical
We want to be there
We find ourselves in the moment
We feel like we are making a difference/having impact
Now let's consider when we are in rehearsals, what we are thinking, what we want, how we feel, what we say to ourselves.
Do we want, feel, and say the same things as in concert scenarios?
Well, we do want to do our best work and be inspired. We don't want to embarrass ourselves. That seems to be consistent.
When there is no audience, who do we want to like our work and respect us? The conductor? Our colleagues? What's our motivation behind that? And could the answer to that ever be ourselves?
Do we want to have fun and enjoy ourselves? Or is that something we've designated as being only reserved for the concert experience? If so, could that be the only reason why we don't enjoy rehearsals as much? Is it simply limited by a mindset? What if we said that one of our goals is to have fun and enjoy ourselves in rehearsals? How might that affect the quality of our work and attitude?
Do we always want to be there? Sometimes - but we are easily distracted. We disengage when other sections are being rehearsed: we check our phones, we think about our grocery lists, we think about the traffic we'll be in when we drive home. Because of all these distractions, we don't aim to find ourselves in the moment and fully engaged all the time. When it's not as high stakes, why do we become less engaged? Sometimes we just want the rehearsal to be over - and in that case, we almost always disengage. So why are we there in the first place?
Do we want to feel important and be seen? If so, by who? And how do we want to be seen? I don't think there is ever an instance where we don't want this. But we don't often realize that this is what we actually seek - that it's what makes us feel proud and fulfilled. So we are confused and frustrated when we don't feel important and feel unseen.
Do we want to feel the anxiety of achievement, connection, hyper-awareness, and magic? If so, might it change how we behave in rehearsals? If not, why not?
Do we feel excited? If not, why?
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I think these questions reveal that we may be limiting our desire for fulfillment only to the concert setting. We don't think twice to yearn for those feelings and expect something special. But the intensity of that desire doesn't always spill over to the rehearsals where we spend perhaps over 50% (often more) of our working time.
If we had those "concert" desires for the rehearsals, could you imagine the growth we'd achieve? Could you imagine how much we'd increase our happiness and fulfillment?
That was A LOT of questions. And I hope maybe just one of those would inspire you to think differently.
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