PERSEVERANCE or OBSTINACY
The sempiternal question: Am I one more effort close to succeeding or will I drive my project into the wall?
Hi all,
Happy New Year. May 2018 bring to you and yours the solid health, the happiness and the success that you are probably working and hoping for.
On my side I have deemed 2018 the year of the accomplishments as my goal at the end of this year is to not be saying “I am working on…” but “I run…” or “I built…”
But before I anointed the year 2018 this way, in a very official manner (an # used in my happy new year texts, that’s as legit as it can get), I spent some time asking myself whether I should keep on working on the same things this year.
I almost gave up on the project that took most of my time in 2017. Why? Because after a full year of networking and developing the project by myself then with a little help from an incubator, I had not gained enough traction. I pivoted three times en route to finding my business model. I was still the only project member, overwhelmed with work, sometimes lacking focus and motivation. Additionally, the feedback on my pitches was that I am addressing a quite small and crowded market. All that with no money and limited resources.
So the usual dilemma between perseverance and obstinacy came to my mind. Then it grew and it grew some more to the point that I was really questioning myself, my project, my WHY and my legitimacy for this particular initiative.
Three weeks out of the country later, spent resting, working on other stuff and also networking with like-minded entrepreneurs while gaging with them the utility of the solution I am building, here I am more than ever focused, locked in and determined to deliver on my own promise to give birth to the company I imagined a year ago.
How do you know it’s time to stop and give up? How do you come to the conclusion that you still have enough in the tank? This is a very personal analysis to make as everybody’s thresholds and motivations are different. And the capacity to bounce back has not been equally distributed. But if I have to describe that moment when you should know it’s time to take a break or better yet let it go, I would say the following. Whenever your project and your vision are not anymore the reasons why you want to wake up and start working, whenever you feel like you have tried everything and you are helpless in front of a complication, is NOT necessarily the moment you should let go. These moments are just the downs of a very rocky road that is called entrepreneurship.
To me, what should be tracked is your focus. Are you still focusing your energy on that idea? And by that I also mean, focusing your anger and disappointment when you feel like you’re not accomplishing enough. As they say, the opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. So I think when you become indifferent to your idea and your project is when you should give up.
And that feeling could easily sneak up on you. It is quite important to always check yourself during the entrepreneur’s journey. I found out that checking progress on your tasks, your traction, your team, your funding, your health, your energy, the engagement of your network and the support of your family is not enough. You should also self-evaluate regularly and make sure that brilliant idea you once gave a lot to bring to life still is occupying your thoughts at almost all times. That’s how you know you are still engaged and how you know whatever situation is thrown at you, you will find a solution for it…eventually.
This is a “come-back” note after I took some time re-assessing my path to creating the company and the product I want to. The time I spent in the pre-incubation phase last year did not exactly lead to the results I expected. And I contemplated giving up on my dream. I wrote this to document and share how I think one should determine whether they are still in it or not.
Feel free to comment if you want to add or discuss anything on this topic. Clap if you appreciated the reading.
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