Alex:  I’m having a moment of weakness. I feel stuck. Moving out to LA makes you realize how much work you really have in front of you. Everyone I meet is an aspiring actress, singer, director, producer… you name it! Everyone has an idea that can be ‘the next big thing.’ Instead of being intimidated, I want to be motivated, but right now I’m just overwhelmed with transition and tired of pretending like it’s easy.
Nik:  Remember, making it in LA is a marathon not a sprint. And if you think of it that way, it’ll take some of the pressure off and get you ‘unstuck’. It’s not about how fast you get to where you think you should be, but about moving toward something. Anything. And you’ve got to keep moving because if you stop there’s a beauty queen from Kansas ready to wave and smile her way into your spot. My mantra when I get stuck ie. full of fear and self-doubt: step up or step aside. This works for me because I’m competitive and I’m not stepping aside for anyone. Find a mantra that works for you when you get all locked up in that place of indecisiveness and uncertainty. You know, when I first moved out here, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my life. I grew up writing and loved it, but it seemed too easy to be a career–like a career should be something arduous and stressful (these things exist in any career, but the difference is that when it’s your passion it’s not a negative experience). My mom gave me the advice to just DO. She told me to stop pondering a million career options and try a few things to see what I liked. She asked how I’d know if I didn’t try. She told me to ‘lean in’ way before the book did. I remember thinking that I wanted to be an engineer, so my mom had me call her friend, a professor of engineering at UW-Madison. He asked me what I found appealing about it and then suggested architecture since my draw to engineering was the element of design. Following that call, I reached out to an architect in LA and he directed me to this really great summer program at SCI-ARC. I took the five week Pre-Masters course and I loved it. It was the first time in my life that I worked hard. Really hard. It was the first time where the only person I could depend on was me. I worked 90 hours a week and was a sleep-deprived-zombie at the end of those five weeks. Ultimately, I decided it wasn’t quite right for me. I loved it, but I felt in my gut there was something else I was meant to do with my life. That’s when I threw myself into writing classes to see if I liked it as much as I thought I did. And here I am, writing for TV, thanks to my mom, because if she hadn’t convinced me to try everything I liked to eliminate the things I didn’t, well, who knows where I’d be now. So my advice is move. Try. Do. You got this.
Alex:  You’re right, starting anything is the hardest part. Starting a workout, initiating a conversation with your friend you’ve been arguing with, starting that juice cleanse or starting a… SCRIPT! Time to begin.