Iman Karram is a graduate of UCLA’s College of Letters, Arts and Sciences and School of Theater, Film, and Television. She moved from Los Angeles, where she took a gap to establish her dance and acting career and immerse herself in her acting training before college. With a career in this field, one is prone to burning out and getting stressed due to this demanding career. In this article, we look further at how she manages this delicate balance of pursuing her dreams and maintaining a healthy mindset.
Putting in the Work While Also Avoiding Burnout
Iman was honest while sharing with us the reality that pursuing acting can seem like a very daunting endeavor at times, partly because it is commonly believed that everyone in Los Angeles is pursuing acting. While there certainly are a lot of people in LA trying to pursue this craft, something a master acting teacher said to her once that “eighty percent of these people should go home today, because they are not willing to put in the work”. He said that in order to call yourself an actor who is pursuing this as a career, you need to be putting in at least forty hours a week. Whether that means, reading books, reading scripts, staying on top of what is being cast right now, staying in acting classes, working on your own promotional materials, engaging with other creatives to create your own content, etc. So, to make this dream happen, you need to consistently be willing to put in the work that others won’t.
Iman lives by this philosophy , therefore her journey has taught her how to better calm her nerves, trust her abilities and communicate feelings and thoughts in a more free manner, which allows her to remain creative and feel liberated while working on her craft, thus keeping her from “burning out”.
Successful Habits
According to Iman Karram, her biggest life hack to living a healthy lifestyle is to take actions to better yourself purely out of self-love and knowing how unique you truly are and harnessing your strengths. A few things Iman does everyday is wake up at 5:30am, write in her gratitude journal, meditate for 10 minutes as well as workout 5-6 times a week. In her opinion, that’s the best way to make changes in her life that are long-lasting, which also takes continuous work and effort. Her close friend put it eloquently that “when the mind is taken care of, it takes care of the body in return.”
“When you use your body to align yourself physically, emotionally, and spiritually, you can conduct yourself in a way that allows you to live happily and achieve what you set out to accomplish. I define that power as a force within you, allowing you to execute your desired actions and emotions” Karram says as she further explains why you need to embrace a healthy lifestyle to succeed.