I’ve been in a holding pattern for the last couple of years. And while I’ve made attempts to break out of it, most of my efforts have amounted to false starts rather than the breakthroughs I was hoping for. It’s a tough space to be in at times. Because after several unsuccessful attempts, I don’t necessarily lose confidence in myself, but I do start to question my vision a little. What I’m (re)learning as I navigate this transition period is that my vision hasn’t sharpened enough. And that means there’s more trial and error and active discovery needed on my end in order to gain further clarity on this path I’m forging.
On the days when I’m particularly frustrated or second-guessing every little thing, I listen to this snippet from Ira Glass. The way he articulates the feeling of trying to bridge the gap between where you are and where you want to be is spot on and provides just the dose of encouragement I need. Take a listen — hopefully it will fuel you when you’re weary on your journey of creating that thing you want (be it art, a new career, a new life path, your own business, etc.)
“Nobody tells people who are beginners — and I really wish somebody had told this to me — is that all of us who do creative work, like, y’know we get into it and we get into it because we have good taste. But it’s like there’s a gap, that for the first couple years that you’re making stuff, what you’re making isn’t so good, okay? It’s not that great. It’s trying to be good, it has ambition to be good, but it’s not quite that good. But your taste — the thing that got you into the game — your taste is still killer, and your taste is good enough that you can tell that what you’re making is kind of a disappointment to you, you know what I mean?”
“A lot of people never get past that phase. A lot of people at that point, they quit. And the thing I would just like to say to you with all my heart is that most everybody I know who does interesting creative work, they went through a phase of years where they had really good taste and they could tell that what they were making wasn’t as good as they wanted it to be — they knew it fell short, it didn’t have the special thing that we wanted it to have.”
“And the thing I would say to you is everybody goes through that. And for you to go through it, if you’re going through it right now, if you’re just getting out of that phase — you gotta know it’s totally normal. And the most important possible thing you can do is do a lot of work — do a huge volume of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week, or every month, you know you’re going to finish one story. Because it’s only by actually going through a volume of work that you are actually going to catch up and close that gap. And the work you’re making will be as good as your ambitions.”
“In my case, like, I took longer to figure out how to do this than anybody I’ve ever met. It takes a while, it’s gonna take you a while — it’s normal to take a while. And you just have to fight your way through that, okay?”
– Ira Glass