It’s okay to suck as a beginner. Just don’t quit and keep producing!
A lesson about good taste and the gap between skills and great work.
If you’re already familiar with the famous work of Ira Glass on The Gap, then you’ll know what I’m talking about. If not, this is simply what I’ve learned from the video.
This is something I believe every beginner should know, especially those who just recently graduated and looking for work. I personally struggled with this for the longest time, and even now I can’t say that I’m near to what I hope to be — but I’m not going to give up.
As a beginner in anything — especially in creative work — it’s okay that your work is not that good, as long as you know what great work looks like and that your work has potential to be great. You need to know that it’s normal—I wish someone told me earlier. What you need to do is keep producing and doing a lot of work. It’s only when you produce lots of it, then you’ll be able to close that gap between your skills and what you know as great work.
For the past three years, I’ve struggled with my writing — even now I can’t say I’m a great writer. I had to basically unlearn a lot of things after graduating from university, because I’ve been trained for four years how to write academically. I quickly realized that I wrote with a lot of unnecessary subordinators and transitional words, and that’s just not how we communicate in our everyday lives. It definitely caused a lot of stress on producing good work for my job.
I can say I’m improving but it’s still nowhere where I want it to be. The key is don’t quit. It takes years and years of hard work to produce great work that people will admire one day. We live in a society of instant gratification, but the sad truth is that the struggles and the hard work are often dismissed. We only see and celebrate the success and accomplishments of someone without realizing how much work and mistakes they had to go through to get there.
So next time you’re feeling not motivated or feeling something is just not right about your work, remember we all go through this phase.
“It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions.” — Ira Glass
For anyone who wants to watch to video, I’ve included it below.
Thank you for reading! If you found this valuable, I’d really appreciate it if you could scroll down a little more and hit the Recommend button. ☺
