Building your self-confidence can be challenging, especially since developing it often requires you to go out of your comfort zone. However, with it being such a useful skill, its important to push yourself into activities that help you to develop it. One of these activities is acting classes, a great way to learn new skills and push your boundaries. The classes teach much more than acting, they help develop useful skills, applicable to everyday life, all of which are helpful for building confidence. In this blog I will look at the many benefits that acting classes offer and how they can help you in your daily life, and most importantly, help build your confidence.


Acting classes benefits:
There are many benefits to taking acting classes, whether you are an aspiring actor or not, they can help you in many aspects of your life and career, while also supporting your personal growth. They are a great way to meet new people, develop your skills, acting and otherwise, and most importantly boost your confidence. Even if you have no aspiration to enter acting as a career, taking classes can help build skills such as teamwork, communication, and creativity. Additionally, if you do desire to become an actor, these classes are even more important, teaching essential skills such as audition preparation, acting techniques, and just generally increasing your capability as an actor through exposure to different scripts and scenes. If classes are your first introduction to acting, then they are a great way to get the training needed to put you on the map of agents and casting directors, especially if they recognise the classes you have taken, giving them an idea of the type of training you have undergone.


How acting classes improve personal growth:
One of the universal benefits of acting classes is the incredibly important personal growth you can undergo, learning invaluable personal skills. For example, your emotional intelligence can improve as you take on new scripts and act out new scenes, you will have to take on many different roles that portray different emotions and motivations, which you as an actor will need to understand and enact. Understanding all of these different feelings that you portray, can help you to understand your own emotions to a better degree, this can help you to be more empathetic to the emotions of others too. This generally leads to an increase in self-awareness, understanding, and empathy, all incredibly beneficial skills on and off camera, and can help actors to bring their roles to life.


The actor has to develop his body. The actor has to work on his voice. But the most important thing the actor has to work on is his mind.
- Stella Adler


Actor and acting teacher Stella Adler believes that an actors most valuable skill is their mind, their ability to imagine, understand, and embody their roles in front of the camera, and the ability to empathise, and think creatively off of it. All universal skills that acting classes can help you to develop.


How to network through acting:
Like any social activity, acting classes are a great way to meet new people with similar interests and aspirations to yourself, it’s a great way to make new friends! However, it is also one of the best ways to learn about other sides of the film industry, through meeting industry professionals. Meeting likeminded people at these classes is a great way to improve as an actor, friends you make there can encourage your development, through feedback and helpful tips. Plus having friends who are also actors is helpful when trying to get cast in a role, learning what works for each other while also supporting one another through audition prep. On the other hand, networking and making connections with people already established in the industry, is a great way to improve your chances of getting auditioned for roles, for example it can help you to get an agent, or getting your name known to casting directors, this way you can focus more on acting rather than finding roles.


How can acting classes teach life skills? 
The best acting classes will encourage many practical skills that are just as useful in life as they are in front of the camera. Skills such as teamwork, communication, problem solving, and flexibility. You will learn how to better work as a team while you act out scenes with other people, reacting to each other while working with one another to create an engaging performance. You will also develop your communication skills, with acting requiring cooperation verbally and physically, you need to be able to speak confidently with other people, both on and off screen, to give a convincing performance and understand each other’s thoughts on the scene. Both teamwork and communication can be utilised every day, it’s an invaluable skill to posses and a great example to use if ever asked for one.
Developing problem solving skills during these acting classes will come naturally, through interpretations of scripts and roles as well as improvising lines or scenes. Flexibility is similar to problem solving for an actor in that it consists of being able to take different approaches and change your perspective on roles from what you initially might have imagined. Again, both of these skills are incredibly useful for everyday life and are highly desired in most careers.


How can acting skills improve confidence? 
The thing all of these skills have in common, is that they all help to improve our confidence, being confident in yourself is essential for an actor and there is no better way to get out of your comfort zone, than taking part in an acting class. Whether you are camera shy, or are worried about taking on roles, acting classes will help to push your boundaries and build up your self-confidence.
Emotional intelligence and empathy are good confidence builders, understanding why people feel the way they do can help you to feel comfortable with your own emotions. As well as this, teamwork and communication skills help with becoming more comfortable in your own abilities, while being able to rely on those around you more confidently, which helps develop your own self-worth and confidence. While communicating your ideas or thoughts to others while also listening to theirs is a great way to build friendships and learn to value both your peers and your own feedback.
In short, the best way to improve confidence through acting, is to take acting classes and get out of your comfort zone as much as you can. The best acting classes will purposefully teach you all of the skills you need to build up confidence, and expose you to scenarios you would most likely never see under normal circumstances. If you are interested in developing any of these skills or are interested in acting, why not try one of our IPM acting classes, available to all ages with classes varying at different levels of experience.