“I am an actor playing a role”

A strategy for public speaking, hard conversations, and many other parts of life.

Imagine giving a talk. You do this from time to time and it’s not the most nerve-wracking thing in the world, but it does stress you out a little. 

Now consider an internal dialogue like this: 

I’ve done talks before and they’ve gone well, but that doesn’t change the anticipatory anxiety that precedes a new one. So now I do it differently: instead of me giving the talk, I assign this role to an actor, played by myself. The actor is responsible for taking direction, rehearsing, and ultimately stepping in front of the group to give the talk. To the audience, it may look like I’m giving the talk—but to me, I’ve outsourced the task to the actor working on my behalf. 

Imagine your inbox is crowded, but you keep putting off the time and attention it needs. You really should answer some questions and be somewhat responsible! But again, you keep deferring, out of some combination of dread or procrastination or demand avoidance or just a persistent narrative you keep telling yourself. 

Now consider an internal dialogue like this: 

I am an actor playing a role. It’s my job to go through these messages and reply to them on behalf of myself. When I try to do it as myself, I feel extremely uncomfortable. But when I play a version of myself as an actor performing a role, it’s much easier. 

These examples and scripts are from my own life—feel free to borrow them directly if they apply to you. But most likely, you don’t face exactly the same resistance I do to exactly the same things. 

But you do face resistance of some kind, right? Some situation in which you experience inner conflict over something that’s ultimately good for you to do? Assuming so, you can apply some version of this idea.

Just tell yourself: 

I am an actor playing a role. My job as an actor is to do this thing. I don’t need to be emotionally invested in it—it’s just a job! I do this job because it’s been assigned to me. I’ll do it well, or at least well enough, and then I’ll hang up my acting hat until it’s needed again. 

On Performances

A performance is not only when you stand on a stage in front of an audience. In fact, many parts of life consist of recurring performances: meetings, conversations, interactions, and so on. 

For all of these experiences, you can learn to see yourself as an actor playing a role. Need to have a hard conversation? Want to ask your boss for a raise? Send in the actor to speak on your behalf.

Call it the power of operating dissociatively, although that’s not quite as pithy of a book title as The Secret.

Dissociative behavior is not always maladaptive! As we go through life, we are constantly performing. 

You are an actor playing a role.