Make something that you'd use even if someone else made a poor version of it

When you're looking to make something for other people, you'll often be told to "make something you want." It's great advice because you probably know what you want better than you know what other people want, and people probably want what you want. It's also great advice because it's permissive. It encourages you to make something, anything, no matter how frivolous (so long as you want it) which is how many great things start. However, it assumes that you know what you want when you might not. Worse, you might trick yourself into believing that you know what you want when you don't. When someone says "make something you want," I recommend translating it to: make something that you'd use even if someone else made a poor version of it.

When you don't know what you want, you can fool yourself into believing that you want anything you can create. The self-talk of this sounds like "I want to create this thing because I'm curious about what I'll learn while making it so I must also want to consume this thing." Another way this appears is "I want this thing but only if it's done right and I'm the only one who can do it right." These thoughts can overlap with making something you want, but they show up when you're making something you don't want too. If the goal is to make something other people want, satisfying your own curiosity or making your personal version of something does not always coincide with what other people want.

When making something you want focus less on the making aspect and more on the wanting aspect. We're told what to want by other people all the time. We're told to not want more than what we have. We learn to self-soothe by suppressing our greatest, most unmet desires. It's upsetting to want things that don't exist and might never exist. But you need to let yourself want. The less convenient the want, the less confirming, the better. Armed with knowing what you want, you alone can determine what's worth making that other people might want. Armed with knowing what you want, "make something you want" becomes foolproof advice. Make something that you'd use even if someone else made a poor version of it.

https://stacker.news/items/1244647