get numb before you get good
If you want to get good at something, then you have to repeat it so many times that you become numb to doing it. Want to start a podcast? - publish every week. Want to write a blog? - write something every day. Want to start a youtube channel? - make videos consistently.
Getting good is the second stage, after you get numb. Until that point, don’t seek feedback, actively ignore advice that you get, and keep hammering away at being so consistent that you get numb.
The same thing applies to children- if they are learning something, hold back your feedback until they get used to repeatedly doing it. If they are learning piano, just playing 10 minutes everyday is much better than trying to teach them to become better or perfect. Just the very act of doing will make them better.
One tell tale sign that you’re getting numb, is when you start putting yourself out there for the world to see. It shows that you have stopped worrying about what other people think. You are getting numb.
On this note, radio producer Ira Glass has a beautiful quote:
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. 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 its 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 awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”
# References
lower bound on time to get a task done treating music composition as a routine chore