“How Do I Know if I Have What it Takes?”

Today I took a deep breath and finally accepted that I have no talent as a songwriter.

And now, having accepted that I have no talent, I’m more excited about songwriting than I’ve ever been in my life.

Let me explain.

When I first started playing music, one of my main motivations was attention. I remember playing guitar in high school and just relentlessly craving the approval of music teachers, pretty girls, friends–anyone who’d listen. I wanted big audiences. I wanted to be respected and loved and scratched behind the ears for playing that thing. I wanted to be seen as a wild, genius, awe-inspiring talent. I wanted to be famous. I wanted roaring applause.

It nearly ruined me.

When you’re performing and playing in a desperate attempt to validate your own talent, you’re putting a lot of pressure on yourself to do well. Any poor performance will carve a bloody chunk out of your courage and motivation.

And craving validation too impatiently can kill your chances of getting good. Why? Because practicing–really practicing–an instrument or singing or anything like that–takes a lot of time and effort and frankly just humility. You have to be willing to sound imperfect. You have to be willing to confront techniques that are difficult. You have to be willing to work on things that, for the time being, aren’t going to sound all that great.

If something isn’t coming naturally to you, if it’s coming slowly… that’s good! That means you’re working at something that’s just a little too hard for you right now. It shouldn’t feel like total murder, of course, but it should be challenging. It should mentally disorient you; it should prove difficult to pull off.

But the songster who’s desperate to prove that she has some innate, natural specialness will misinterpret this slow improvement. She’ll see it as an omen that she doesn’t have what it takes. That she should give up. So this songstress mercy-kills her own dream, hoping to save herself further pain and humiliation.

She might give it up with a dramatic flourish, with tears and pain and a long sleepless night. Or she might give up on the dream slowly–by just telling herself she’ll “get around to” her dream someday, when she has more time maybe. But of course there’s never any better time than now. That’s all a myth we tell ourselves. A craft as difficult and complex as songwriting never gets any easier to focus on.

And so the guitar slowly collects dust. The dream, starved of practice, withers. Dies. The callouses on the songstress’s fingers gradually soften. She gets rusty at reading music notation–if she ever even got as far as being able to read and write music. Whatever ability she had dries up; she moves steadily backward. Watches TV and surfs the web to dull the pain. And, finally, she reaches her grave never having released even one album.

All this just because practice was hard one Thursday evening and she sounded–in her own words– “awful.”

Alternate ending

But wait–this tragedy makes no sense. Why’d she kill her dream? Practice is supposed to be hard. A beginner is inevitably going to sound clumsy and flawed; she’s a beginner for chrissakes.

Let’s reverse the tape of this songstress’s life all the way back to that one afternoon. Let’s say she was just as ambitious, that she set her sights just as high–but instead of expecting every performance to sound fantastic, she expected every performance and every practice session to become an opportunity to hone her talents.

Let’s say that this time, our songster is more compassionate with herself. And instead of judging the way she sounds as “good” or “great” or “awful,” she uses different labels. Labels that are less judgmental and more specific. Instead of sounding bad, it sounds “sharp.” “Flat.” Or “imprecise; sloppy.” Or “weak.”

You can fix “sharp.” And you can practice at slower tempos, paying close attention to accuracy, so that “sloppy” playing eventually sounds clean and fluid. “Weak” playing can be attempted again, and this time it can be played forcefully and clearly, right on the beat.

So the songstress listens calmly to tapes of herself practicing. She hears what’s good in them and she hears what still needs work–possibly with the help of a good teacher. The two collaborate on ways to hone the skills that still need work.

Over days and weeks and months, not only does she improve, but she becomes formidable compared to the songsters who shy away from difficult training. If she keeps this up, trusting the process day after day, stretching herself, continuously learning and investigating and improving her skills, our songstress could eventually go down in history as one of the best that this planet has ever heard.

Do you see the difference? Coming to this art with realistic expectations is essential. If you expect that fantastic work will fall out of your guitar or emanate from your piano or come flying out of your throat like a bird right away or not at all, you’ll burn out quickly. You’ll stress yourself out, you’ll disappoint yourself, you’ll get discouraged fast.

Expect to be a beginner. The best players see themselves as students, even when others regard them as masters. Masters stay focused on what’s weak in their skills.

Almost all beginners want to know: “Do I have what it takes? What do you think, do I have any talent?” All beginners are afraid that they’re wasting their time, that there’s some kind of talent ceiling they’ll hit. They’re afraid of investing time and energy and hope into this craft without knowing whether it will all pay off.

Learning any art is a serious undertaking, and it’s totally understandable that somebody would feel small and experience doubt at the outset. When a total beginner asks “Do I have what it takes to be a songwriter?” The most honest and helpful answer I’ve come up with is: “Well, not yet.” But nobody is barred from working at this craft and becoming better at it. Come one, come all.

Here are a few things that can limit you:

1. The quality of your teacher or your teaching materials. A good teacher is one that knows how to train the skills you lack. If you’re self-taught, you’ll need to do a lot of listening to great musicians. You’ll need to study songwriting texts. You’ll need to analyze your own performances with candor and honesty–and consider hiring a teacher now and then to get a second opinion on your progress.

2. Your focus. Your desire. Can you keep focusing intensely on tasks that are just beyond your reach? Can you repeat the same predicament over and over and over for minutes, hours, days until you finally master it? And once that’s done, can you move on to the next thing? Luckily focus can be developed over time through practice. Your attention span can be lengthened. But you’ve got to desire mastery enough that you’re willing to pay the price in time and energy spent.

So–as I said at the intro to this article–I accepted today that I have no talent. Or, more specifically, I’m giving up the idea that I need any validation of talent. I’m cashing in that whole idea, giving it up and focusing wholeheartedly on study and practice.

What I get in return is constant, steady improvement. Probably the toughest part of all this is retaining patience and self-compassion. The task is large. The quest is long. All I have to do is focus on today’s practice and leave the rest for tomorrow. This is going to take a while.

Do I still crave validation? Sure, of course. The approval of a mentor, praise from friends and strangers… these are vital to my sense of fulfillment along the way. The difference is that I’m not emotionally dependent on that applause. Whether or not a gig goes well, it’s a chance to learn, right? And a bombed gig isn’t cause to give up–it’s a chance to learn and adjust and figure out what I need to strengthen in myself.

It’s tempting to rush to the fruits of our labor–to try and skip the labor itself. But we all need to take this craft one step and one bite at a time–otherwise we choke.

Go slowly. Be patient with yourself. Take the time to thoroughly master the fundamentals. Chew and swallow.

Sooner or later, you’ll find yourself bewitching an audience with your skills. People will grab you after the show and say, “I wish I had talent like yours.”

And you’ll be able to accept that praise graciously, because you’ll know to your core that you’ve worked hard to develop your talents to the fullest.