1–10 of 15 posts
Has anyone else experienced/overcome this as an entrepreneur?
Something that I find encouraging in my personal projects is to stop for a while, take breath, and realize of how much I have accomplished so far. It is probable that a little voice in your head will say "there is still a lot to be done". And maybe it is true. However, I think that satisfaction must be found in the daily task, not in the final outcome :)
Your diet fallback position now consists of chicken and broccoli and one meal per day. No sauces no famcy drinks, no coffee. You must walk the equivalent of 15000 steps. That is your "little hell". You come up with a different scenario for "little heaven".
There's your fallback position when you don't deliver on daily or weekly goal. If you do deliver you know what happens as well.
Now do your thing. Set goals etc.
The actual choice of food etc isn’t important. Hell: Make it spartan / Make it limited. Heaven: make it fun / expansive. Don't even need to make it food/exercise. Plenty of other options. Use your imagination.
You could try consequences. Some variation of the following might work. Your diet fallback position now consists of chicken and broccoli and one meal per day. No sauces no famcy drinks, no coffee. You must walk the equivalent of 15000 steps. That is your "little hell". You come up with a different scenario for "little heaven". There's your fallback position when you don't deliver on daily or weekly goal. If you do de…
The idea is you propose a talk for 6 months out on your idea. You thus give yourself a deadline and consequences.
(And it’s not HUGE consequences - “I tried X and failed, here’s what I learned on the journey” are some of the best conference talks)
Have you heard of conference driven development? The idea is you propose a talk for 6 months out on your idea. You thus give yourself a deadline and consequences. (And it’s not HUGE consequences - “I tried X and failed, here’s what I learned on the journey” are some of the best conference talks)
You could try consequences. Some variation of the following might work. Your diet fallback position now consists of chicken and broccoli and one meal per day. No sauces no famcy drinks, no coffee. You must walk the equivalent of 15000 steps. That is your "little hell". You come up with a different scenario for "little heaven". There's your fallback position when you don't deliver on daily or weekly goal. If you do de…
Your “hell” scenario sounds more like a baseline healthy lifestyle than a punishment.
Most people would see it as severely limited because they'd want to add some sort of poison like alcohol or ice cream etc.
- Mastery: the feeling of exercising and gaining skill.
- Autonomy
- Purpose
- Relatedness
I’d advise you go talk to someone (probably your product manager) to get a better sense of the “why” behind your project and the humans it helps.
My recommendation is that what you work on has to have deep purpose and meaning to you. My recently released product is a productivity app that I had to build for myself. Once I started using it, it was game changer for me. Next step was to productize and make it available for others.
The point is what you work on as your side project has to have a clear payoff to yourself. That will drive you, and pull you forward.
Good luck!
Feeling this loneliness in your own projects is very common. They are somehow a long distance race. If you like it, you will find motivation sooner or later. Obviously, the lack of a paycheck for your own project may discourage you. However, nobody says it would be easy. Take into account that only because is a personal project, it does not mean that you will not find the difficulties of a real project. Lack of motiv…
Its probably that "there is still a lot to be done" thought is actively demotivating and that's the issue.
Perhaps having too many plans and goals for a given project rather than just enjoying the task as you mention can get in the way.