8 Ways To Get Out Of Your Rough Patch

Comedy is a long haul.

Around %90 of people who try comedy don’t end up getting to a position where they are paid and of that group %90 don’t make enough to live off. This tells us two main things..

That in the face of these odds people still want to try and pursue standup and that the huge majority of us will fail spectacularly, upsettingly and most importantly, consistently.

I say this as the most important because I’ve known very few comedians who’ve stopped performing after one particular gig, the majority quit outright after a long build up or gradually fade from performing from a slow and relentless onslaught of bad gigs, reviews, shows and interactions.

Now usually if as a comic you are progressing and have some form of upward trend in the quality of your material and skill as a performer then it will outweigh what I just mentioned but these things are slow and take time. It’s in this slow time between noticeable improvement that we can often feel like we aren’t progressing, are static or even moving backwards with strings of bad gigs or just plain bombing.

This may well be true if you aren’t writing enough, aren’t pushing yourself, aren’t jumping up at the spots you should be and aren’t hounding the bookers but let’s say you are doing everything right and still are finding yourself in a bad space as a performer, what then?

Here are 8 things to do when a life in comedy doesn’t seem that funny anymore.

1. Accept it

Just as it’s totally natural to be on a hot streak of gigs, lady luck can work the other way and set you up with days or weeks of uphill battles with drunk crowds, weak before-acts, illness and feeling out of sync or off rhythm. This isn’t to say you shouldn’t look for ways to improve and tweak your performance when you’re in a rut but accept there is a limit to what you can feasibly do when the odds are very much against you.

I go by a rule of never blaming the audience, even when it’s their fault.

If you find that for some reason things aren’t working when they were before then change it up. Reorder your set, try some crowd work and see how your comedy/life balance is working out. If one is too demanding then try to re-access the best use of your energy and time to get the most out of both.

For me a bad run of gigs won’t feel like I’m a bad comic but more that I’m out of sync with the good comic I can be. The best thing I find for this is exercise. Slow, methodical, rhythmic exercise like running is great to burn excess energies and frustrations. I won’t run for a set amount of time, I run until the nervousness, anxiety or irritation is gone. This way you have a clear goal for when you’re done and you’ll usually find you end up doing more than what you would have if you just went for a run on a whim. There’s also something to be said about draining your reserves of energy and your body’s ability to reset, so pull a Forrest Gump and just start running until there’s nothing left to run for or from.

2. Find people who creatively challenge and push you         

This is a big one whether you’re on a bad streak or not. On stage you’re alone but offstage there’s an entire scene and then world of comedy to be apart of. Many of my closest friends are in the scene and are terrific comics who I enjoy writing with and being creative in general around.

It’s important to have these people because at a base level humans are wired to help those in our group but also compete. When the pressure is off writing your own material it’s far easier to be creative with others so I’d suggest writing and brainstorming ideas with other comics for their own sets. You’ll get to see how they think which is a new input of information for you and you stand a good chance at jump starting your own creativity.

On the competitive side having people around you doing well can do wonders to push you to try harder. If they write for 20 minutes a day then not only is it feasible for you to as well, it’s also likely possible for you to write for 30 minutes. If they try one new bit per open mic then you can try two etc. Just be mindful of where your ego is at when competing with others. It’s all well and good to let competition push you upwards as long as it’s not at the expense of others. Also if you can’t handle others doing well then this isn’t the route for you, find a way to be happy in the success of others without it getting to you otherwise being around people doing better is just going to make you hold yourself down longer.

3. Watch Comedy

I’ll do this all the time. 

I genuinely feel that nothing will make you want to do comedy more than being in the crowd at a great night of comedy when you aren’t on. You’re brain will take some time off creating whilst it’s watching others perform but during that time it’s constantly taking in new ideas and performance styles. This coupled with the energy and positivity of a good night at a show will often have ideas forming without any intention set in the back of my mind.

Whilst in this positive space try writing new tags or avenues for the comics you’re watching and even think about how you’d deliver or write the material they’re talking about. It’s very easy to forget that comedy is meant to be a hugely positive and cathartic activity for those watching but as those who perform it we can often forget the fact. You know who probably need’s massages the most? Masseuse’s. 

Probably.

So go laugh and enjoy comedy in the way you did that first made you want to perform way back when.

4. Try New Material

If watching comedy when you’re not on makes you want to perform the most then trying new material is a close second. No matter the rut I’m in, finding a new bit or premise or even joke I like will have me thinking about the chance to perform it all day. On top of this the surprise and elation that comes with a new bit working when you weren’t sure about it would fly is amazing and knowing I have something new to work with will keep me going for days.

However this means writing new material so if you find you’re stuck ask yourself when was the last time you tried new material and more often that not the answer will be that you haven’t been and instead have been playing it safe with older stuff at open mics designed to work new content.

5. Take a writing break

The opposite to not writing enough can also be a source of major frustration as a performer. If you’re burning yourself out writing and performing too much, relative to where you’re at in your career then you need to ease up. Take a break and set an intention to not perform, write or even do anything comedy related if need be.

I say set an intention because this is the important part. 

You need to tell yourself you aren’t going to write. 

Make that the goal and give yourself permission not to. I’ve found there’s a big difference between writing less and stopping entirely. If you tell yourself to stop entirely then you give you mind the breathing space it needs to recover along with the permission to do so. However if you simply write less during a period where you would usually be writing then you will still get a build up of anxiety and irritability that comes from feeling like you aren’t achieving what you should be or working hard enough. It’s easy working in an industry as seemingly lax as comedy to feel like you have no real responsibilities but you’re still doing a job and one that can be particularly demanding over time. So take a personal day or days. You’ll know when you’re ready to go again because you’ll be practically begging for a pen and paper from the amount of ideas you’re brain will be tossing around once it’s hand some chance to rest.

6. Recentre your focus on the material

One of the most common thing that comes with a downward trough in your standup is the feeling that your jokes just aren’t that good. Whilst this can be hugely beneficial as a means of pushing you to write whilst in a positive mindset, when your down its just a kick in the dick. How are you meant to get people to laugh with things that you don’t even find funny anymore?

The key word there is “anymore”. 

For the most part we only ever write material that we feel is funny and so it follows that most of what we say on stage is something that at one point we found funny. The issue is then that after enough times it becomes worn out to us even though after multiple uses for potentially years on end the material will still be new to audiences that haven’t seen it.

Developing the ability to keep material polished is a huge aspect of being a paid comedian as bookers will want your best material which means consistency and repetition. However this can be a big deviation from the high octane euphoria we feel when trying and succeeding with new material as we change gears for the smaller, more gradual yet more frequent appeasement from doing the same material night in and night out.

As I mentioned earlier new material can be a great help in fanning the flames of your creative fire but there’s only so much it can do. If you don’t have new material or are struggling with that then you need to be able to at least make old material work in the mean time until you crack into a good streak with new content.

For this you have to take a bit of a mental journey. Try to find a quiet place either within the club or outside of it and think to your material that you feel is old and un-funny. Try to take yourself back to not only the place you were when you wrote it physically but also mentally. It might not seem like much but recreating as many of the small details in your mind will help. What it was like to first perform at a certain room, particular audience members, sights, smells, whatever you need to in order to bring you back to that place. Once you are there, bring your material to mind and try saying it in a few different ways. Break up the strain of repetition that it’s been under so that it no longer feels like a word said too often that’s lost all meaning. Look for the excitement or edge you felt when you first wrote and performed it and think to the positive reactions it’s had in the past.

If all of this works, and it can take time and practice, then you’ll be able to approach performances with more of the optimism and enthusiasm you once had for the now older material.

If you are really struggling I’d recommend watching old footage or listening to recordings of you performing material. When I first started I used to watch footage of myself at comedy nights where I’d done well relative for where I was at the time and it did a lot just to boost my confidence in myself as well as my material.

If you don’t have any footage, then consider recording your set for the next show as a means of getting some but also coercing you into putting more energy into a set that might have been unconsciously lacking to lift the quality of your set.

7. Change your relationship with the audience

I’ll speak in other articles about the importance of rituals to those who need consistency and stability in as volatile an environment as a comedy club but in brief small actions, mantras and habits repeated can do wonders for focusing and revitalizing your set. At most comedy clubs you’ll find comics either bantering backstage or going over their set before they get up but you rarely see them doing any preparation beyond that despite the fact that we’d do it before pretty much any other activity whether it be stretching before exercise or tongue twisters before acting on stage. I think there’s a real opportunity for a lot of comics to create a greater consistency in their sets by using one or a few small rituals to get yourself in a relatively similar frame of mind before each set.

When it comes to being down on your abilities as a comic your nerves and self esteem can be wounded which will invariably make it harder to succeed at future performances which usually leads to a cycle of worse sets until something breaks. Nerves stem from anticipation of events in the future that, for the most part, are unlikely to happen unless you let them. Things like not doing well on stage when you have before and have the potential to again are usually caused by the comic not having faith in themselves of their material. Just as before where you began to see your comedy as funny again, you can take things further to see yourself as funny or at least hold yourself to a lower standard.

Before going on stage I do a few small warm-ups and mentally focus on the idea that the audience hasn’t come to heckle me and the other comics as my anxieties would have me believe. Neither have they come to not laugh or be belligerent. They have come to laugh, or more specifically, they've come for an opportunity to laugh. This places even less of an onus on you to make them laugh because all you have to do to fulfill your role in the exchange is give them an opportunity, what they choose to do with that is up to them.

By changing this dynamic between performer and audience you can be calmed in knowing that the role you play as a comic is actually really simple despite how easily convoluted it can get. Just give them the opportunities to laugh and try to focus on the idea that you can choose to like them regardless of what they are like. In choosing to like them it becomes a lot easier to envisage that they inherently like you and have no ill will towards you and in a few small mental steps you can go from thinking you will definitely bomb to confident in the likelihood that you can at least try your best and in the majority of instances that will be enough. Sometimes you just need to reorient yourself and realize that your standards might be too high. That hot run of gigs you had the week before you started bombing might have been a little too good and artificially inflated your sense of what your comedy can do.

There’s nothing wrong with some recalibration and it will help your material develop to the point where that previous unnaturally good reception becomes the norm.

This is a trend that will continue to happen throughout your career and you’ll be amazed at how many times you look back thinking that a set that you once deemed to be great was actually beyond mediocre and probably terrible. This is all good and means you’re growing.

I’ll say it as many times as I need to. If you’re not looking back every 6 months to a year at your material when start out as terrible, you aren’t progressing.

8. Quit

If all else fails then maybe comedy really isn’t for you. If you love it let it go. I’ve known so many working comics who’ve left performing and that’s fine but I know a fair few who have returned after weeks, months and years. Life can get in the way but that doesn’t stop you’re desire to perform if it’s truly in line with standup.

Rodney Dangerfield bombed so hard he didn’t perform for almost two decades. But whilst living and working as a door-to-door roller shutter salesmen he still kept writing and filling up a chest with scribbled ideas on paper so that when he returned he returned big.

Age isn’t a factor, you can start university in your 60’s just like you can quit comedy in your 20’s and in my experience a lot of people who start later have more ideas, stories and content to work with anyway. So take a big break and if it’s still nagging at your later down the track then keep jotting down ideas and working on bits so that if you ever do return you can do it big, Dangerfield style.

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