First of all, Happy New Year.
I hope you all made it through the holidays without too much psychic scarring, and maybe you even had a pleasant time.
OK, so today marks the beginning of a new year, and we can’t help but think about the year ahead and what we hope to accomplish. That accomplishment might come in the form of starting some new habits, or maybe you’re hoping to let go of some old ones.
It’s easy to feel the weight of resolutions and goals. For me, it’s a great time of year to revisit one of my favorite interviews of all time.
This interview is with Ira Glass, who, if you’re not familiar, is the host of This American Life, a radio show on NPR that has been going strong for 30 years.
It’s an old interview that Ira figured would never be seen by anyone, but it turned out to be one of the most important messages for anyone trying to do creative work. I’d venture to say that I think his message serves most of us, especially if we’re new at something we want to get better at.
“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, and I really wish somebody had told this to me.
All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But it’s like there is this gap. For the first couple years that you’re making stuff, what you’re making isn’t so good. It’s not that great. It’s trying to be good, it has ambition to be good, but it’s not that good.
But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, 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. A lot of people never get past that phase. They quit.
Everybody I know who does interesting, creative work has gone through years of having really good taste. They could tell that what they were making wasn’t as good as they wanted it to be, and they knew it fell short. Everybody goes through that.
And if you are just starting out or if you are still in this phase, you gotta know it's normal, and the most important 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. It is only by going through a volume of work that you’re going to catch up and close that gap. And the work you’re making will be as good as your ambitions.
I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It takes awhile. It’s gonna take you a while. It’s normal to take a while. You just have to fight your way through that.”
—Ira Glass
I want to highlight two things from this interview: First, it’s normal to suck at the start—something my ego hates admitting. Second, improvement comes through repetition—a huge volume of work.
Ira recommends doing a huge volume of work because the only way to get better at ANYTHING is to practice it over and over.
It’s day one of the new year, and more than likely, you want to get better, faster, stronger, skinnier, happier, calmer, or maybe you just want to quit suffering so damn much.
No matter what, all of those things will require work. Lots of reps and cycles that no one can put in but you. There is nothing else to read, no more podcasts to listen to, no more videos to watch. Chances are, if you’re here and reading this, you already know what to do…you just have to sit the #&$% down and do it. Pardon my French.
Want to stop drinking? That takes work.
Get fit? More work.
Make more money? Yep, more work.
You already know what to do—now sit down and do it.
Wanna be a better writer? Reading On Writing or The War of Art ONE MORE TIME ain’t gonna do it. Ass in chair…and write.
That’s the bad news.
But the good news is your dream of getting healthier, happier, and calmer is TOTALLY within reach.
You can start off as a beginner and get better over time by putting in lots of work. A “huge volume of work”.
Look, this may seem obvious, but if you happen to be the kind of person who finds it hard to get started on something new because you don’t want to be bad at it, know that you will only be bad temporarily.
Today, embrace being a beginner. Know that you will feel like you suck at the new thing you’re trying. Your work will be bad. But you have to create that “shitty first draft” before you can iterate and make something better.
It’s inevitable that you will improve IF you put the work in.
Happy New Year Y’all.