I'm Better Than This: Why Talent is Preventing You From Succeeding
What goes into achieving success as a writer? It's a complicated question, but I think one aspect a lot of people would strike on would be "talent." When you want to succeed at something, it helps to be naturally gifted at that thing, right?
Wrong.
Being talented at writing can actually hold you back from ever achieving any meaningful success!
"What?" I hear you chorus, baffled, bemused, and a little annoyed. "What are you talking about? Of course being good at something is a good thing!"
And you're right, of course.
Wrong.
Being talented at writing can actually hold you back from ever achieving any meaningful success!
"What?" I hear you chorus, baffled, bemused, and a little annoyed. "What are you talking about? Of course being good at something is a good thing!"
And you're right, of course.
Until it isn't.
There are millions of aspiring writers out there, and only a tiny fraction of a fraction of them will ever go on to have anything we would identify as "success." So what's the difference, if not talent?
When you are naturally good at something--at least, if you're anything like me--you never learn how to try at that thing. If writing comes easily to you, and you whizz through school on first-draft, last-minute essays that still get As and Bs even though you didn't bother proofreading past spell-check, then you have missed out on something that the rest of the kids learned: how to sit your butt down when you don't feel like it, and write even though it's hard. Discipline is a muscle that everyone else was building, while yours was atrophying away inside your talented, talented head.
That would be all fine and good, of course, if natural talent was enough to carry you effortlessly through the writing process of entire novels. But it's not. Being a writer--earning your "er"-- is not easy.
That's an understatement equivalent to saying space is not small.
The reason that talent can prevent you from succeeding is because success is always born of hard work, determination, perseverance, and just the tiniest hint of stubbornness-to-the-point-of-insanity. It doesn't matter if you are the most naturally gifted wordsmith since William Shakespeare and Walt Whitman's improbable lovechild--if you don't have the dedication and discipline to plant your butt down and get the words out, you'll never get anywhere worth going. Talent is just a road sign, letting you know which path you should take. It's up to you to actually move yourself down that road.
So today, I challenge you: stop being an aspiring writer, and start being a perspiring writer.
There are millions of aspiring writers out there, and only a tiny fraction of a fraction of them will ever go on to have anything we would identify as "success." So what's the difference, if not talent?
When you are naturally good at something--at least, if you're anything like me--you never learn how to try at that thing. If writing comes easily to you, and you whizz through school on first-draft, last-minute essays that still get As and Bs even though you didn't bother proofreading past spell-check, then you have missed out on something that the rest of the kids learned: how to sit your butt down when you don't feel like it, and write even though it's hard. Discipline is a muscle that everyone else was building, while yours was atrophying away inside your talented, talented head.
That would be all fine and good, of course, if natural talent was enough to carry you effortlessly through the writing process of entire novels. But it's not. Being a writer--earning your "er"-- is not easy.
That's an understatement equivalent to saying space is not small.
The reason that talent can prevent you from succeeding is because success is always born of hard work, determination, perseverance, and just the tiniest hint of stubbornness-to-the-point-of-insanity. It doesn't matter if you are the most naturally gifted wordsmith since William Shakespeare and Walt Whitman's improbable lovechild--if you don't have the dedication and discipline to plant your butt down and get the words out, you'll never get anywhere worth going. Talent is just a road sign, letting you know which path you should take. It's up to you to actually move yourself down that road.
So today, I challenge you: stop being an aspiring writer, and start being a perspiring writer.
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