Everything is Harder than You Think

If you’re anything like me, you see a lot of subjects and projects that are interesting. Here are some common ones:

• Learning a new skill
• Finally sitting down to write a book
• Creating a website
• Trying out one of many Internet Marketing strategies
• Learning coding

And the list goes on…

I’ve worked on several of these with varying degrees of success. I’ve written fiction and published it on Amazon. I’ve built a ton of websites for different reasons. I’ve tried a few different methods of making money online, too. I even spent a couple of months trying to learn Java. It was fun and I learned some of the basics, but I couldn’t commit the amount of time it would have taken me to get good at it.

Off to a Running Start

When you start doing these projects, it is fun and exciting at first. There are countless resources for almost anything you want to learn. You can take training courses on sites like Udemy, learn from YouTube tutorials, or purchase online courses for self-study.

In the beginning, everything can seem pretty easy. You get used to the jargon and quickly pick up the basics. Everything goes smoothly until you hit a wall. An issue will come up which you won’t know how to handle. So you’ll do some research with Google or check out some more YouTube videos to find the solution. No sweat.

Then this happens more often. Now half your time is spent researching or studying and the amount of work you are actually doing slows down. You might develop “analysis paralysis” where you are consuming so much information that you don’t know what to do with it all.

I’ve been there a lot and it’s an awful feeling.

Losing Steam

Are you supposed to keep studying or work through the issues one by one as they come up?

It is easier to keep researching and watching videos than it is to trudge forward. This is where most people give up. They decide that it is too hard to keep pushing forward and quit. Most people quit most projects they start.

It is harder than you thought.
It is easy to quit.
If you aren’t careful you develop a habit of quitting.
You’ll start a project and when it gets hard, you quit.

Now don’t get me wrong. Quitting for the right reasons is fine. I actually think you should quit several projects if you decide they aren’t right for you.

It’s great to learn and try new things. There’s nothing wrong with dipping your toe in the water to determine whether you want to dedicate yourself to it. Chances are, the first project you try won’t be the one you stick with for the long haul. For whatever reason, it just isn’t for you and the only way you can know that is to try.

But once you find something that sustains your interest, even when it gets challenging, you need to push through. Keep putting in consistent work and work through the snags along the way.

It will be harder than you expected and it will be tempting to quit.

Catching Your Second Wind

You have to decide if this is what you honestly want to do. Is this the project that you want to master?

Once you’ve decided, then quitting cannot be an option. You will get frustrated and discouraged, but that is temporary. You can overcome any obstacles that pop up, if you don’t give up.

It might require more studying. It might require you reaching out to someone more experienced. It might even require you to be so tenacious that there is no other possible outcome than success.

If you stick with it, then eventually you would reach a magical point in your progress.

You begin to deeply understand.
The issues become easier to handle.
You learn to solve issues on your own that would have been impossible before.
You become an expert.

This is when great things happen.

You may even create resources that can help others who are in the beginning stages like you were before. People might reach out to you for help and now you can give back because you are an expert.

Then you just keep going.

But you have to get past those hurdles and challenges that will inevitably come up. Once you decide to dedicate yourself to the project then there can be no quitting. Your commitment to yourself needs to stick.

Keep searching for projects you want to work on.
Quit a lot of them.
Find the one that is made for you.
And then DO IT.