A lot of people make the mistake of setting the bar too high.
Thirty minutes onstage for me is literally a full day's work. So I make sure I eat right and I make sure I keep my energy high.
Every year I try to keep in excellent shape and improve some part of my game. I play in the offseason overseas to keep my game tuned up and hopefully improve a little in some area.
You always want to make sure that you're not the weak link. You're surrounded by really talented, great actors and singers, so just staying on your game is the main thing.
The nature of life is to be a study of contrasts: joy/sadness, full/empty. The Main Thing is to Keep The Main Thing The Main Thing.
I feel like I've set the bar fairly high, and I want to keep living up to that bar.
The problem is, women have stopped setting the bar high.
A competitor continually sets new goals. He feels the need to keep raising the bar. If the fist goal is to make the team, and he achieves it, he immediately resets the goal to: I want to be a starter.
You always have to keep setting the bar for yourself.
If I'm in the car after a bad game, I may think about ways I need to improve. But the second I reach home, the game's over. Work doesn't come inside with me. Same thing in reverse - I don't bring my personal life into the ballpark. Learning to keep it all separate has made life easier.
The main thing for me is to make sure our home is peaceful, that it's healthy, that the kids are good.
The main thing is to be yourself. Many times its through a mistake that you learn. And the main thing is to make sure you learn through your mistakes and get better.
If you do your "homework" well you can be sure you'll feel more relaxed. Make sure you have a walk or rest before the game because the most important thing is to be focused during the game itself! If you get tired by preparation you won't have enough energy left for the whole game, and we all know that a single blunder can ruin all the work done beforehand!
'The Conjuring' was a massive success, and honestly, it set the bar quite high. So I was nervous about making the sequel, and I wasn't sure if it will still have the same impact as the first one did. But that's what moved me to make the sequel.
I keep setting the bar higher for myself in terms of what I'm trying to accomplish.
I can improve and make my game more complete, but I keep on working and try my best.