By Anthony Meindl | Posted March 5, 2014, 10 a.m.

Pilot season. How do you survive it?

What do you do when you test for multiple roles but dont end up getting any of them? What do you do when you see your friends going out for weekly auditions and you havent heard from your reps in weeks? What do you do when you get bad feedback on an auditionand therefore no opportunity to testwhen you thought you hit it out of the park?

Breathe.

Getting through pilot season requires the actor to not get caught up in the energy and frenetic pace in which agents, managers, casting directors are often forced to work. Even though everyone else is stressed out, feeling the pressure, and having to deliver, doesnt mean you have to.

What if you just practiced some mindfulness and remembered these few simple points:

1. Everyone is doing the best they can with the chaos of having to have everything done yesterday. From agents to managers to casting directorseveryone is trying to find the right talent for the right role. Sometimes that might be you and many, many times it wont. Its not personal.

2. Remember that pilot season is a few short months. What does or doesnt happen in those months doesnt mean youre doomed to be unemployed the rest of your life, or that youre a terrible actor. Its a tiny window of your life as an artist. You didnt let only the first three years of your life define you as a person, so why would you let a couple months do so now? Dont let this moment now define everything you are and everything youre capable of. (Everything is ultimately about the now, but its not about your judgment of it and what you think it should be.)

3. Allow yourself to be human. Youre not a robot. That means sometimes youre going to be awesome in the room and sometimes you might just tank.

4. Be patient. Sometimes the thing you think you want is really not the best thing for you. Let things evolve as they naturally will, not as you force them. Besides forcing something never works.

More here:
How to Survive Pilot Season Without Having a Nervous Breakdown