Stop Rushing Yourself

A Struggle with Patience

This letter was written for my new video on YouTube. If you prefer this over reading, feel free to watch it, give it a like, and subscribe. Otherwise, we’re moving on with another awesome weekly newsletter!

My new song “Never Could’ve Been” is out now on all streaming services.

This one perspective shift has completely changed my approach to crafting music.

The first thing to understand is that every artist can fall into this trap, and it's almost always overlooked. So many people say "don't overthink, don't wait til everything is perfect, just finish the thing" but I don't think this deserves to be a blanket statement used for every situation. If your vision isn't met with your standards, there are other options instead of saying "just finish it and move on". Let me show you.

A couple of years ago, I threw some guitar melodies and drums together and started humming to what I was making one night. It was already late, and I could feel my eyes starting to burn, but something clicked, and suddenly I could feel the juices flowing. I had to finish this tonight because when a moment of inspiration strikes, you have to capture it as soon as you can before it escapes. When the instruments were ready, I was excited to dive in. I started singing and mumbling to the instruments and this idea of a chorus spontaneously came up, "I could never leave, I could never leave ya." In one take I had the hook. I kept going through the song. The lyrics were just flowing out so smoothly like a gentle fountain. Every word dripping out my mouth like honey. The euphoria was intoxicating, but suddenly halfway through the start of the song, it stopped -- the fountain had run dry.

I lost connection to whatever power was giving me my words and melodies.

I felt a pit in my stomach as I looked at the time. I could see the sun coming up as I looked back at not even a half-finished song. I didn't finish in time and I was devastated because I knew that if I went to sleep now, I would lose the moment, and that energy that was lingering would disappear. But I was so brain-dead, and I had to call it a night.

The next day, I dreaded having to face the fact that I would never replicate the magic of last night. My voice couldn't match the tone and emotion I performed with, the words weren't flowing at all. Nothing I was writing would match the spontaneity of what I had created. The vibrancy and warmth was lost. That connection I had to the song was suddenly severed.

No matter how much I wanted to finish the song, I couldn't rush it or anticipate that energy to return.

I wondered if it was even worth finishing, so I sent it to a couple of people, thinking that maybe I was hyping this up too much for myself. Maybe I should toss this and move on "don't overthink it, make the next song, go, go, go" -- only to hear back that they LOVED the snippet, and wanted to hear more. I didn't have the heart to tell them that that was all I had done with the song so far. So I went back and tried again and again and again and nothing was working; constantly trying to make the song feel the way I felt that night, chasing that one moment, wishing I could recreate what I had. If only I could go back. If only I could regain that lightning in a bottle. After too many days of attempting to finish the song, attempting to recreate what couldn't be replicated -- I quit. And I moved on. I believed I was overthinking the process and I retreated to the belief that if I couldn't finish it, it wasn't worth the effort and I had to keep going with other projects. I closed my computer and just let the song gather dust.

Insecurity would settle in, and I would tell myself that maybe I wasn't good enough yet.

I wanted to step away from it all. The song stayed unfinished on my computer for years, with the rest of them in my graveyard of incomplete projects; never to be heard again. There was also another part of me that knew that if I "just finished it" I would make something unacceptable to my standards, and I just didn't want to do that for a song I believed in. I realized that the only option I had at the time was patience. I had to stop rushing and trust that I would figure it out eventually. Sometimes that can be your best move. I realized I lacked a system for songwriting. I'll share what I learned in another letter for those interested in diving deeper. You can get those updates when you subscribe to my newsletter.

Eventually, years passed and I almost forgot about the song. I opened up the old file by accident while searching for something else. The melodies played back, and the nostalgia swept over me. I looked at the project and the same empty verses were staring back at me. I was reminded of the lost moment all those years ago. A reminder of my insecurities, my lack of creativity, and my lack of commitment to finishing something that had so much potential. I look at the unfinished lyrics, remembering my writer’s block.

Trusting that one day I would return with the right tools, today I knew I could tackle this song head on.

I lingered over the song as I started crafting it bit by bit. And in one night, I had finished the rest of the song. Had I finished it when I first started, I wouldn't have made a song that I would've loved. But now that I took the time to let the song finish itself when it was ready, I created something I'm very proud of. “Never Could’ve Been” is out now on all streaming services.

Earlier, I mentioned trusting the process with patience will let you make better music. But if you don't have any systems for songwriting, then even "trusting the process" won't save your song from being finished. So sign up to my newsletter where I talk about the artist journey I'm on. I'll send updates on songwriting and production insights, new songs I make, playlists, and special offers on templates, merch, and more.