Is Your Voice Over Career Stuck? Blame Legacy Thinking (and How to Fix It!)
- Tom Dheere
- Jun 18
- 4 min read
Updated: 19 hours ago
Legacy Thinking: Your Voice Over Career's Silent Saboteur
We need to talk.
This discussion isn't about voice-over business tips and tricks. It's about something far more insidious. This hidden force can quietly and brutally stunt your voice acting career: Legacy Thinking.
What is Legacy Thinking?
It's how your past can hold your future hostage.
Understanding Legacy Thinking
Legacy Thinking occurs when you cling too much to how things used to be done. We're talking about those "best practices" or "industry norms" that stopped being effective years ago. This rigid mindset might sound familiar:
“But I’ve always gotten work doing Direct Marketing!”
“Nobody who is ethical uses Pay-To-Play sites.”
“Why mess with what’s been successful?”
Experience is vital. It's worth its weight in gold. But there’s a difference between leveraging that experience and being shackled by it.
When you cling to outdated strategies, you are not leveraging your experience. Instead, you're building a cage around your potential. What landed you gigs yesterday might not even result in an audition today.
The game changes constantly.
How Legacy Thinking is Secretly Choking Your VO Career
It Creates a Concrete Wall Against Change: The voice-over industry is a chameleon. With AI, new platforms, changing client demands, and shifting budgets, if you’re anchored to "the way it's always been," you're resisting change. You are actively fighting gravity. You'll stagnate. Period.
It Slams the Door on Innovation: Remember Blockbuster? Kodak? Nokia? These companies failed not because they were bad but because they refused to challenge their own status quo. The voice actors who thrive today are the ones who experiment. They are trying new marketing strategies, performance styles, and genres. If you're not innovating, you're becoming a historical artifact.
It Induces Decision Paralysis: Have you ever agonized over investing in new equipment? Or debated trying a new coaching program? If your old setup “worked fine,” it might be holding you back. That's Legacy Thinking, forcing old solutions onto new problems. While you’re hesitating, opportunities are flying by.
It Makes Your Own Ambition Disengage: High performers crave growth. They thrive in environments that embrace progress. If you’re constantly telling yourself, "This is how I've always done it," you’re telling your own inner performer to shut down. That leads to disengagement, frustration, and even looking for a different line of work. Don’t let that happen!
Spotting the Symptoms: Are You Trapped?
Be honest with yourself. Here are the tell-tale signs:
You spend more time discussing past bookings than setting future goals.
You dismiss new ideas automatically. Phrases like "pay-to-play sites are scams" or "social media is a waste of time" may arise because they challenge your framework.
You avoid any risks that challenge your established expertise.
When a new idea pops into your head, your first thought is, "that won't work," instead of "how could that work?"
Busting Out: How to Ditch Legacy Thinking for Good
Let’s talk solutions. These changes aren’t rocket science, but they require conscious effort.
Shift from "What Worked" to "What’s Possible": Instead of asking, “How did I land that client back in 2014?” ask yourself, “If I were starting my voice over career today, with all the current tech and trends, what would I do differently?” Challenge your own assumptions.
Cultivate Constructive Self-Dissent: Engage in some internal debate! Ask: "Is this truly the best way or just the easiest way?" "Am I holding onto this because it’s comfortable or genuinely effective?" Be your most productive critic.
Study the Future, Not Just the Past: Don’t limit yourself to industry news. Explore marketing, tech, and business trends. Follow entrepreneurs beyond voice over. Listen to podcasts that challenge conventional wisdom. Understanding the broader direction of the world will better prepare you to adapt.
Test, Don’t Assume: Have a wild idea for a new demo spot or marketing approach? Instead of dismissing it with "That'll never work," test it for 30 days. Start small. Experiment. Trust data over assumptions.
Reward Your Own Adaptability: Celebrate every effort to try something new, even if it's clunky or doesn’t pay off immediately. Recognize that adaptability is a crucial superpower in today's market.
The Future Belongs to the Flexible
I have witnessed many voice actors, myself included, transform their careers not by resisting change but by embracing it. It's not about abandoning everything you know; it's about ensuring your knowledge is current, relevant, and propelling you forward.
Are you repeating old patterns instead of designing new ones? Are you resisting change because it makes you uncomfortable? Are you clinging to "what worked" instead of passionately exploring "what's next?"
Cut those invisible brakes. Your voice over career depends on it. What’s one piece of Legacy Thinking you’re going to challenge in your own career starting today? Share your thoughts in the comments!
Onward and upward!
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Through VO Strategist, Tom has provided voiceover business & marketing coaching since 2011. He's also a voice actor with over 25 years of experience who has narrated just about every type of voice over you can think of. When not voicing or talking about voicing, Tom produces the sci-fi comic book Agent 1.22.
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