Why do I keep quitting?
Author’s Note: Nothing I am saying here is new but I think there is a lot of value in saying it to myself and anyone who finds this.
I quit 3 times in 3 years. I created videos about food, about running, about culture, and about the internet. The truth is, I became too self conscious. I would convince myself there was someone out there judging and laughing. This cycle would start from a place of saying “Screw it. I don’t care what other people think.” But eventually those self conscious thoughts would sneak up on me. Becoming louder and louder until I think they must be true.
Yet here I am again.
What is real and what isn’t?
The good thing is I am consistent. The persistence with which I try to start these projects would indicate that there is something deep within me that wants to do it. What I need to start doing is paying attention to what the world is actually saying rather than what I make up in my head.
Everyone around me has been incredibly encouraging and kind when it comes to these projects. Throughout every version their response has been positive. Yet I never listened to them. There was even a time when one of the projects got micro popular but I put it back on the shelf because I was afraid some made up persona was judging me. It turns out that voice was my own.
Where does that voice come from?
The voice in my head was saying “Oh this isn’t that good! What you are making is bad. Everyone else must be saying it”. Which if I’m being honest is half true. What I was making wasn’t good. I was a beginner. It makes perfect sense that what I was making couldn’t be compared to the stuff I was trying to emulate. However, it wasn’t until I saw this quote from Ira Glass that I began to understand what was really happening.
“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit.”
This was an entirely natural part of the creative process. I could recognize that my work wasn’t as good as the things I was trying to recreate and I assumed the rest of the world must think the same. I was quitting too early. I was giving in to the critic in my head that had gotten me into the game in the first place.
Am I alone in this?
No. This feeling was not unique at all. Ira touches on this too:
“Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or 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. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. 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. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take a while. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”
Well now it is time to fight my way through.
What will I do differently?
Set deadlines. I’m going to hold myself accountable and force myself to create a volume of work.
Fall in love with the craft. Focus on the act of building and not what comes from it.
Recognize when the voice in my head is getting loud and remind myself that I’m doing this because I enjoy it.
For the past few years I wasn’t paying attention to my favorite part of fantasy books. The part where the protagonist is training, building a routine, becoming better. The character feels the gradual compounding returns of daily work. (Yes this is main character syndrome but I think we could all benefit from being the main characters of our own stories). I wanted to skip right to the end. I was ignoring what my own mind and heart were saying - slow gradual progress is the most rewarding kind.
It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from Brandon Sanderson in the Stormlight Archive: “Journey before destination”. This applies to not only the creative process but to life itself. Life isn’t about the results, it's about the journey. It’s about savoring the small things along the way. If it was just about the results we would all stop trying once we reached some arbitrary value of success. The most value can be derived from romanticizing the craft. The process is what we can control and results are exactly that, results.
Now for the hard part - consistency. It is a good first step to put all of this on the record but the real progress will come from doing it day in and day out. Doing it when it is easy and doing it when it is hard. The rest will follow.
What is my lasting thought from this letter to myself?
I’ll end on this final note that really drove it all home for me. Colman Domingo in an interview said “I didn’t consider myself a struggling artist, that is the life of an artist.” His words reminded me that just by the act of trying you are doing. By making this or any of the other stuff I really want to make I am being the thing that I want to be. It doesn’t matter about the success or the views or the likes. It's about the process and the craft.
I really love what you said about the process being the destination!