Why trying to connect the dots looking forward is a bad idea
After initial engagement and ambitions I stopped posting on LifestyleBusinessTransformation, because I couldn’t figure out where this new endeavour would get me. Mea culpa.
It’s very typical: You start something new, you could stay up all night and after a few days, weeks or month you completely lose interest in your project.
But why, and how to fight against it?
Over the last month I have started my transformation from a traditional job to a lifestyle business as a solopreneur.
Things are going fine so far, but more on the progress of the last months in a next post.
You can’t connect the dots looking forward
This famous quote is from one of my all time favorite speeches of Steve jobs. You do something today which for some reason benefits your future self. But you will only recognise this once you live in the future and see how your writing or marketing skill you learned today influenced the course of your successful business then.
Wouldn’t it be great to already know what you should do today?
Taking the right steps today would mean you could directly work towards your own future success. You would have a clear path from today to your final goal that you are trying to achieve.
You wouldn’t waste a single hour on a project that’s already doomed! You only spent time on the “right things” and never do something that will later not benefit you.
So figuring your path out from today would be the best way to build the lifestyle business that fit’s your life.
That’s what I’m trying to do constantly. And that’s what will get you really stuck.
Because it just doesn’t work that way!
How to waste your time finding answers
Over the last 5 months I’ve been running my own business, started new projects and got new opportunities. But still I was looking for the holy grail.
How does my “end game” look like?
What do you dream of, what ist your lifestyle business you think and dream of day in and out?
How does it look, how will you earn money?
E-commerce? Blogging? Books? Courses? Speaking? Consulting? A startup or company?
There are countless options, and it’s of course a good idea to think about your goals from time to time.
But if you constantly try to look into the crystal ball to find answers from the future, you will slow down yourself almost to zero traction. And you will waste countless hours telling yourself that you are “working” on your future by thinking about all the great options you have!
The term information overload is very true in this context. There are so many “gurus” but also successful people telling you which path is so super easy today, but is it really that easy to start an Amazon FBA business?
Is it easy to grow a YT or Medium following to a number which brings in a solid income?
Many of those new business models look super shiny on the outside but take a very high amount of work to get started. And that’s where work comes into play.
And that’s when it hit me: You just have to put in the work. Today. Like the old saying:
“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” — Chinese proverb
You can’t know today if your blog will be successful one day. You can’t know if the new startup idea is something everyone was waiting for.
You can’t predict success.
But you can choose to work, learn and create.
Opportunities will come to those who work
When I started my first blog Devdactic, I just wanted to document my learnings while coding cool stuff. Back in my mind I got a very, very tiny hope that one day I might sell something to my audience, but I was very far away from that.
I couldn’t connect the dots looking forward, and being in my current situation I think nothing I had imagined back then would have come close to the reality today.
But the fact is, because I started, because I wrote and because I improved, new opportunities came my way!
Opportunities will come to you knocking on your door. The only thing you have to decide is if they are worth spending time on.
If you are stuck thinking, you can wait a long time that something magically happens. But the universe seems to favor those who put out some work, help people or just do anything. And “trying to figure it out” is nothing that get’s you closer to your goals.
Small steps, not high hopes
So when I checked my articles from 5 month ago on LifestyleBusinessTransformation I saw how helpful this documentation of my thoughts was to me. You might have had this feeling if you check old journal entries or lost documents on an old PC from years ago.
We think we never forget the feelings and thoughts of those days, but we are pretty good at dropping that stuff from our mind.
And this tiny flame of helpfulness that I felt looking at these old articles was what got me engaged again. But this time I’m not hoping to create a super successful blog in a few months, this time I just want to document and speak to likeminded people.
I want to be helpful no matter how my “end game” will look like. If you ever experienced same thoughts, please leave me a comment!
Wishing, thinking or hoping will not bring you one step closer to your goals. Waiting for a better future is procrastination and killing all your dreams.
Hope is not a strategy.
Put in the work, start today. Even if it’s a small task, start. Get some momentum.
Build on that and see where the roads takes you, but try not to overthink everything today.
You won’t connect the dots looking forward anyway. Especially not by thinking.
Escape the Rat Race
If you want to build your own Lifestyle Business, join my list and let me help you build the Business you deserve that fits your Lifestyle.
One last thing…
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Originally published at lifestylebusinesstransformation.com on August 26, 2017.
