How to overcome not finishing ideas or projects?

[Benny21]

Whenever I start a new project or have an idea for a business, I get really excited. I dive right in and immerse myself doing everything and learning as much as I can. I imagine the success and lose track of the time cause I'm enjoying it.

Then a couple weeks, or a couple months later, that drive and passion are gone. Sometimes I think it won't work out. Other times, if I'm not doing well or having success, I'll just give up.

I guess it's like getting a new toy or gadget. You're excited at first but that excitement wears off and then it's just an old toy sitting in the closet. That's how I feel sometimes about it.

I would hope I don't have a fear of success. It's more like a fear of failure.

So what can I do to keep focus?

Or is this a good thing sometimes? My instincts trying to guide me in the right direction?

[Thekla]

I think there are times when it could be a good thing, but if you are doing this with most of your projects, then you are either picking the wrong projects, taking on too many of them, or your process for working on your projects is not working. There will always be phases where the glamor wears through, and you will definitely want to learn how to work through those phases when it's going to be worth it for you.

Some possible food for thought:

Can you think of some projects that you *have* finished over the long haul? What was different about them from the ones you dropped? Did you stay excited all the way through, or did it come and go? If you had low points, what kept you going? If you stayed high all the way through, why do you think that was?

Have you ever experimented with pushing through really hard and finishing a project that you'd lost the spark for? If so, what was it like and did you feel good about it at the end? If not... what would it be like to pick something and give it a try?

Best of luck!

Take care,
Thekla

[Benny21]

Originally Posted by Thekla

I think there are times when it could be a good thing, but if you are doing this with most of your projects, then you are either picking the wrong projects, taking on too many of them, or your process for working on your projects is not working. There will always be phases where the glamor wears through, and you will definitely want to learn how to work through those phases when it's going to be worth it for you.

Some possible food for thought:

Can you think of some projects that you *have* finished over the long haul? What was different about them from the ones you dropped? Did you stay excited all the way through, or did it come and go? If you had low points, what kept you going? If you stayed high all the way through, why do you think that was?

Have you ever experimented with pushing through really hard and finishing a project that you'd lost the spark for? If so, what was it like and did you feel good about it at the end? If not... what would it be like to pick something and give it a try?

Best of luck!

Take care,
Thekla

Thanks for responding Thekla. Those are things I need to dig deep and try to recall. I appreciate the time you took to help.

[allen080105]

Push through the resistance and finish one project. Think of it like you're building a habit of completion. You've probably built a habit of not completing tasks so you'll want to finish just one project. Then, once you know you can finish one project, the next becomes easier to stick with if it is of equal or lesser difficulty.

This happened with me and books. I would usually open up a book and read maybe 10-30 pages and put it away never to read again. Then one day I told myself "I'm going to finish a book" and I ended up reading The Road Less Traveled all the way through. That was about a year ago and after that one book I read 17 more. That one book made it so much easier to start and finish other books. Internally, I guess I had to prove to myself that I could start and finish. This year I'm trying to move up to one book a week.

[Thekla]

You're welcome! Good luck and I hope you'll post back on how things go

[ellie]

I do this too, but I have come to accept this is who I am and part of my nature. A lot of entrepenarial/creative people do this, because they have so many ideas that they get bored. Recently I have been listening to a lot of internet markters interviews and was very pleased that a lot of entrepeners do this - so there is hope I found this interview a great example of how it's normal to jump from idea to idea Podcast: How Did Jeremy “Shoemoney” Schoemaker Get To Where He Is Today? - Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak

I think it's best to just accept it and realise that this is something you do, but also work with it. So maybe leave the project for six months and come back to it, after you have worked on a few other things. I try now to at least once a week do something creativie that I have wanted to do on my list. So last week I created a kids website, this week I've put gift cards together, next week I will go back and work on the kids site and work on edditing some videos.

Someone recommended on here Refuse to Choose, by Barbra Sher Amazon.com: Refuse to Choose!: A Revolutionary Program for Doing Everything That You Love (9781594863035): Barbara Sher: Books

[falcan]

Recently I also found out the MOTIVATION is so much important for me. If my primary motivation was to "have success", my project failed. If I looked more deeply the pattern was:

"To have a success, I'll have to do project..(X)"

This isn't strong motivator for me though. I thought it was but it wasn't really. It's this:

"I need to do this project to fullfill my vision. Then as a side effect I hope t also have success and more freedom (and I'll do my best for it)."

Notice the difference, fullfilling my vision is my fuel - I found out that in this case, the fuel is suddently almost unlimited. I'm working almost for a year on a project like this now, the more I work on it, the more I'm motivated.

Before, I worked on several prototypes and always quit after month or two. It's important to hold on, but also don't hold on just for the sake of it.

[SMA]

Hi, Benny21,

I was going to pop in and recommend Barbara Sher's book, but I see Ellie has already done so above. Barbara's explanation of what it means to be what she calls a 'Scanner' may make a lot of sense to you, as it did for me. There are ways to work with this ability (NOT disability), and just having it praised may be something new for you.

Not everyone will understand that this comes not from laziness but from other things - boredom (deep intelligence), a new interest seeming more tantalizing (as opposed to being scatter-brained), etc.. Enjoy!