Matt Bennett’s recently released album, Terminal Cases, was born of tragedy but represents a triumph. Knocked down by a combination of his parents’ divorce—and a simultaneous career lull after the television show Victorious, his main acting gig, came to an end—Bennett picked up his guitar, and with inspiration coming from the unique combination of Robin Williams’ films and Lou Reed’s Berlin album, he started writing.

“This album is very personal,” Bennett says of Terminal Cases, which features a variety of musical styles, almost all of which have their foundation in rock. “When my parents split up, and when Victorious ended, I was trying to work through the feelings of these two massive structures in my life, my job, and my family, changing, and altering.”

The Robin Williams inspiration came from Bennett looking for, and finding, new emotional depth in Williams’ films. While watching the legendary actor’s movies, he’d ask himself, “What other angle is there to this movie that people aren’t picking up on that is a statement in itself, that is something nobody has really thought of in that angle?”

It wasn’t all movies, and songwriting, for Bennett, however. He remembers hitting a personal rock bottom, saying that back in 2014, “I just got to this low point where I’m like, ‘I’m moving to Japan. Forget everybody.’ I bought a one way ticket.” The week he was set to leave he booked a role in the film Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, and his “move” to Japan became a three week trip.

Two years later, he has the triumph of Terminal Cases, and the surviving of tough times it represents. With that in mind, Bennett shares five tips for getting through tough times that everyone can use.

Find a New Passion & Create Your Own Structure in Life

“After the show [Victorious] I gave myself six months where I was like, ‘I’ll book something,’ and nothing came my way, so I was like, ‘Alright, something needs to change.’”

The change, for Bennett, started when he dove deeper into something he already had an interest in: Japanese culture. “I had gotten really into Japanese culture. I’m not really into anime, or anything like that, but I started listening to a lot of Japanese music, and the way they mix genres so seamlessly really interested me.”

Bennett’s interest in the culture was so piqued, he traveled to Japan. His first trip there would prove to be life altering. “It has such an interesting, unique, vibe, that I started pumping all this time into learning Japanese, and studying, and figuring out more about the culture. That put me in a good headspace, because I could be stuck in the boring monotonous routine of getting in your car, driving to an audition, not hearing back, but I had something else to live for, and I had something that I’m creating the structure for. It was all about structure. My days had become structureless, so now I had one thing on my calendar, Japanese class, and I could go home and study Japanese, and I devoted all this time to it ... It gave me a really positive outlet to put this time, and this energy, into.”

Realize Life is Imperfect & That’s OK

“The World According to Garp is what inspired the last song (on the album, “Garp (Terminal Cases)”), and, coincidentally, is my father’s favorite book. The line that always stood out to me is, ‘In the world according to Garp we are all terminal cases.’”

With that line on his mind, Bennett remembers, “I was walking, and I found a little post-it note on the ground, and it just had the words, ‘He didn’t win them all.’ That always resonated with me, those two sentiments: we’re all terminal cases, we all make these mistakes, we’re all going to die, we’re all just trying the best that we can, and not any one person wins them all, nobody is perfect. That was an important thing.”

Get Out as Much as You Can & Embrace New Friendships

“I try not to stay in my apartment,” Bennett explains. “I have a thing on my door that says, ‘This apartment eats souls, and the couch is its mouth.’ The second I sit down on the couch I just get lazy, I get sleepy.”

The cure for this, of course, is going out. “I have a coffee shop where I’m friends with a person who works there. It gives me an incentive to go out without having to break the bank. I go and take Japanese class. I meet friends there ... At the start of every Japanese class my teacher asks, ‘What did you do this weekend,” and I’m always like, ‘Nothing. I went to this birthday party, and I had this, and I had that,’ and I realize, oh, I did a lot this weekend, and if I can do it I know that it’s attainable for anybody.”

Find Some Cool Places & Make Them Your Hangout Spots

“I have hubs all over the place,” Bennett says of his current home city of Los Angeles, “little zones that are cool, that are safe, and that are kind of exclusively Matt Bennett.”

For Bennett, some of these places include his favorite coffee shop, specific spots in Little Tokyo and Koreatown, and the Cinefamily theater, which is a refurbished silent movie theater where they show experimental films, as well as foreign films, and host Q&As with directors. Bennett notes one of his favorite aspects of the theater is, “They also have a patio in the back where you can go, and drink, and meet people, and talk, and connect with other people who have the same love of movies.”

Find a Creative Outlet

“I’ve always written songs, and I’ve always tried to express myself creatively,” Bennett explains, adding that without a creative outlet, “it’s difficult, sometimes, to express exactly how you’re feeling.”

The creative jolt that initially brought the concept for Terminal Cases to life was a viewing of the film Jumanji. “Something about it really struck me, and I always have a guitar handy. I picked up on these overtones of how this is somebody who had to grow up too fast, who missed his own childhood, and now here he is, he’s out of the jungle, but he’s just walked into another jungle. He’s stuck in the middle of being adult. He kind of remembers the events leading up to it, but a lot of it’s blurry, and all of a sudden new people are in his house, mom and dad are gone, and he has to be an adult for the first time. For obvious reasons that spoke to me, and the song just poured out.”