I just sent a discouraged student this piece of advice from Ira Glass, and in so doing watched it again myself. If you’re a person hoping to make a career doing creative work, I highly recommend — actually, I insist — that you watch it as well.
In a nutshell, here’s his message: Yes, you suck right now — that’s because you haven’t been working long enough. The only way to stop sucking is to keep working, because that’s how you get better. No one is born great; everyone sucks, and every person who does what you want to do got there by pushing through that long, dark period of sucking and working hard to improve at what they do. If you give up now just because you think you suck, you will suck forever. So just. Keep. Working.
Now, I hope you’ll excuse me, but there’s a rehearsal I have to get to.
I’ve seriously lost a lot of confidence over the last year or two, to the point where I don’t even know what I’m doing anymore, and if this is ever going to happen for me; if I’m ever going to be a success.
Shit like this makes me less depressed.
