THE GAP by Ira Glass

Nobody tells people who are beginners...

and I really wish somebody had told this to me

is that all of us who do creative work

like you know we get into it

and we get into it

because we have good taste.

But it's like there's a gap

that for the first couple years

that you're making stuff

what you're making isn't so good okay?

It's not that great.

It's trying to be good has ambition to be good

but it's not quite that good.

But your taste the thing that got you into the game

your taste is still killer

and your taste is good enough that you can tell

what you're making is kind of

a disappointment to you

you know what I mean?

A lot of people

never get past that phase.

A lot of people at that point they quit.

And the thing I would just like say to you

with all my heart is that most everybody

I know who does interesting creative work

they went through a phase of years

where they had really good taste

they could tell what they were making

wasn't as good as they wanted to be.

They knew it felt short.

It didn't have this special thing

that we wanted it to have.

And the thing I would say to you is:

Everybody goes through that

and for you to go through it

if you're going through right now

if you just getting out of that phase

you got in now it's totally normal and

the most important possible thing you can do

is do a lot of work

do huge volume of work.

Put yourself on a deadline

so that every week or every month

you know you're gonna finish one story.

Cause it's only by actually going

through a volume of work

that you actually going to cat catch up

and close that gap.

And the work you're making

will be as good as your ambitions.

It takes a while it's gonna take you a while

it's normal to take a while

and you just have to fight

your way through that.

Okay?