My dream began when I was a very little girl. I always knew that I was going to be an actress, and I've always loved a camera. In fact, I remember practicing my movie star pose when I was about four years old. My family tells me that when we went on outings, I would disappear-and they would find me down the beach posing and waving in front of some stranger's camera. There must have been a lot of people who said, "Who's the chubby little blonde girl?" when they got their photos back.

Still, I put my dream on hold as I grew up and began to live everybody else's dream of what my life was supposed to be like. I had no other kind of role model-nobody I knew was in the arts or entertainment industry. So I quit college after less than a year, got a job, got married, had a baby and started a business with my husband. I always thought, "Someday I'll pursue my acting dream."

One day an application for our ten-year high school reunion came in the mail. I couldn't believe ten years had already gone by. The form asked: "Who did you marry?" "How many kids did you have?" and so on.

The final question was, "Have you achieved all you thought you would in your life by now? "It hit me like a ton of bricks-I hadn't even started!

The first thing I did after my wakeup call was consider my options. I hadn't finished college, and by now I was a single mother with a two-year-old daughter. But I thought, "I can write and I'm great in front of the camera. Why don't I become a broadcast journalist?" Everybody told me it couldn't be done, but that always makes my fight kick in.

I found two mentors. One was the news director at KGW, the NBC affiliate in Portland, and the other was a producer at PM Magazine. "If I bring you stories," I asked them, "will you mentor me? Because I am going to work for you. And don't tell me what's good. I want to know what to do to make my stories better so you'll hire me." They both took me on. And this is when I first started to ACT AS IF! I began to assume the position and act as if the life I wanted was already happening-until it was.

I would call someone, lie through my teeth and say, "Hi, I'm an associate producer with KGW. If I come in and pre-interview you, we may do a story on you. But I need to pre-produce you first." Of course, everyone wanted to be on TV. So after each interview I would race home and write it up into a script, adding video shots I imagined I would use if I had a real camera. The next day I'd knock on doors again and present my stories to my mentors. They were shocked to see me back so soon! But they liked my moxie, and I was good. And persistent. Finally KGW hired me as an intern, and I sold my very first story to network.

About the Author:

Barbara Niven is definitely living her dreams! She's one of Hollywood's busiest actresses, and has served on the National Board of Directors for the Screen Actors Guild. Between film assignments, she is in demand as a presentation and performance coach. Barbara created the breakthrough ACT AS IF! system and speaks about her struggle with and victory over an eating disorder, so that others will speak up about their own secrets and get help. She's profiled in a book called Feeding the Fame: Celebrities Tell Their Real-Life Stories of Eating Disorders and Recovery.