Control.

I remember the moment everything changed for me with standup comedy. It was very recently. It was not the covid shutdown either. It was before that. I would say everything changed was after a few months of running both a show and an open mic weekly. It was then that I finally truly felt the shift.

“The road to success is always under construction.” ~Lily Tomlin.

It didn’t happen all at once for me. It was a tipping point. It was the culmination of several different things. The main ones being: running a successful open mic for a year, starting another weekly showcase, and writing group. I had made these goals before and it took me about 2 years to fully realize all of them but it was worth it.

I was inspired by my other jobs. I would go do a job that was paying me day to day and think, man I want to be doing this with standup. I would be struggling to learn something new at the job and I was thinking this is not what I want to struggle with. Yes it pays the bills but it’s not my calling. So I set out to treat standup like a job. I wanted to be doing the work I would do in a new job, but focus that on standup. So I just started my shows and worked to keep making them better. Keep pushing myself. Then started the writing group and after that the weekly showcase.

Before all this I was secretly or not so secretly bitter about so much. That’s what happens. I was listening to all the complaining and victim mentality that we all can fall into. I realized that for me it was about control. I just focused on things I can control and worry about only those. Things began to shift. I took control of my stage time. I took control of my writing. This is an important thing that everyone needs to learn. If you focus on the things you can control you will increase your odds of success. It’s just increasing your skills, making you more effective. It has less to do with chance. I had heard over and over to just be undeniably good. But that is not an easy feat. I think better advice would be: focus on optimizing the things you can control.

I like to take any complaint and then flip it to, ok what can I control about this? Or what is a way I can take control of it? For example: Nobody is giving me stage time. So I think who gets the most stage time of anyone on most shows, the host. How do I become a host? What is a way that is completely within my control to start hosting? 1. Ask to guest host. 2. Talk to a venue about starting my own show. These are important because they are solutions that give me control of my own destiny. It is an empowering feeling to take control. Real results come from when we focus on the things we have control over.

The downside of control is that I must own my failures because it is solely based on what I did. When I focus on what I can control, I cannot blame it on another thing or someone else. When I focus on what I can control, I am the reason for my failure as much as the reason for my success. I must make peace with this and be ready for it. I grow from my mistakes and get stronger from them. Take risks and work hard on what I can control, it is empowering and scary but I must be ready to do it.

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Thank you for reading, You’re doing great. 

Bjorn RG.