As a young, aspiring singer/songwriter, I dreamed of creating something incredible.

Inspired by The Beatles, Chuck Berry, Smokey Robinson, and Bob Dylan — in other words, world-class, genre-defining, generational talents — I thought about where my music would fit in the pantheon of the greats.

In my “planning,” I completely skipped over the part where I would write, perform, and promote my music, connecting with potential partners and fans one by one, building a career the way everyone has to build a career: day by day.

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Is Kendrick Lamar handy with a hammer?

How’s Saoirse Ronan’s volleyball serve?

Sure, David McCullough is a revered writer, but can he write funny tweets?

We really don’t care. These greats are valued for their contributions to our culture — we don’t need them to be good at everything.

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School is compulsory and not necessarily aligned with our areas of greatest strength or interest.

Often, doing the minimum required to reach your goals is a reasonable decision.

And doing the bare minimum to pass is understandable.

The problem comes when we don’t know how to give more than the minimum, even if we want to. We become so conditioned to parrot back answers or get things over with as quickly as possible that we struggle to go deeper, even when giving more is what would actually help us to reach our goals.

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Having spent over a decade teaching music lessons, I can say for certain:

Music lessons aren’t where you learn to play an instrument.

Sure, they help. But the real work is done without your teacher, by yourself, playing and evaluating.

If you are unable or unwilling to spend this time “in the woodshed,” you will not achieve your goal of playing an instrument, no matter how much time and money you spend on the lessons themselves.

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“The bottom of the nose belongs down here, and the eyebrows should hit here. You can improve the perspective on the house in the background by incorporating these lines. Also, why is the sky a strip of blue at the top?”

We know that there are developmental stages that children’s artwork goes through as they learn, so we don’t expect kids to draw like adult professionals. Dena Luchsinger makes the case that it’s just as unhelpful to a growing writer to point out all of their mistakes.

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When we're learning something new, it can be discouraging to compare ourselves with more established artists. 

It can almost make you want to put down the guitar, step away from the watercolors, or get off the stunt motorbike. 

The first thing to do is close out Instagram or Facebook or wherever you're watching people make art instead of doing it yourself. Social media can be great for inspiration, but it's easy to overdose on consuming instead of creating.

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