Action Without Intention Is A Project Killer
Part one of a series on why our motivations matter
We’ve all been there: diving headfirst into our next big thing —convinced this is the idea that will take off—only to hit a brick wall of burnout months later. A project we once poured our heart and soul into slowly sputters out, drifting through the vale and into the project graveyard. Like clockwork, the ghosts of shame and self-doubt emerge, picking away at why we didn’t stick with it.
Not the most fun experience.
If you’re anything like me, this has happened more times than you’d like to admit. The good news is that we can learn why we fall into this vicious cycle and prevent it from occurring with future creative ideas.1
In the next few newsletters, we’ll break down how our starting motivations and goals affect the fundamental success or failure of a project. In other words, we need to understand the why behind our undertakings.
My crash-and-burn moment
In my latest post, I talked about how I started streaming after I got laid off. What I neglected to mention is that I also kicked-off another project at the same time—one that sputtered out and failed to launch.
I’m a big believer in using an event like a layoff as a reset button—or at the very least, an opportunity of reflection.2 In the spirit of this, I dragged out my big 36 x 24” whiteboard and started jotting down ideas.
One of those ideas was to launch a job board for a niche of the biotech industry. It was inspired by a conversation I recently had with friends who were applying to MBA programs. They convinced me to explore that path, and I learned that having a solid entrepreneurial project under my belt would help my applications. Hence the job board.
From there, I dove right in—consulted my tech-savvy friends on the best platform to use for building a website, meticulously curated the right list of companies to include, and designed the whole site. I spent a lot of my time building out this job board and was really proud of it.
But as I came closer and closer to finishing my MVP, I felt increasingly hesitant to push it live.
I found myself having the same conversation with my friends:
“When are you launching your job site, Ari?”
“It should be ready in a month!” Three weeks later, the same question. My answer? Still a month out. Another two weeks? You guessed it—still a month out.
The website was ready to launch, but I wasn’t ready to launch it.
Intention matters
It’s now a year and a half later and the job board remains unpublished, collecting dust on its tombstone.
So why didn’t I launch it?
The work had been done and I felt confident in the product itself, but there was one major problem: the goal of the project was fundamentally out of alignment with how I wanted to live my life. Deep in my intuition, I knew I didn’t want to pursue an MBA.3
Back then, I didn’t have this level of awareness yet, and just felt like garbage for once again not launching an idea that I had. This one was especially frustrating, because I had put so much work into the website before abandoning it.
Today, I feel indifferent—if not grateful—that I didn’t launch it, because I think it would’ve ultimately been a waste of my time. My motivations for building the job board were rooted in fear. Fear that if I didn’t pursue an MBA, I would be overlooked and undervalued professionally. So I convinced myself it was something I wanted (or needed), even though that wasn’t at all the case. It’s no wonder that it didn’t work out.
Even though I don’t regret failing to launch, I hope we can all learn from my mistakes and circumvent this experience in the future. Working towards something we don’t actually want becomes emotionally draining and even tumultuous. Wouldn’t we rather spend our time on pursuits that fill our cups?
At the outset of a project, we must take the time to align what our project aims to achieve with what we genuinely desire. If we don’t, we’re setting ourselves up for burnout and are ultimately wasting our time.
As a starting exercise, consider asking yourself the following questions when kicking off a new idea.
What do I hope to achieve with this project?
Why do I care about the outcome of the project?
Are my goals rooted in fear or external expectations/pressures (i.e.: social pressure, financial pressure, etc.)?
If we’re mindful at the offset, we’re more likely to embark on something that fulfills us. We’ll feel energized instead of drained and we’ll be much more likely to stay consistent in our efforts.
Tune in next time for part two
Thanks for reading! We’ll continue to build on this concept over the next few newsletters.
-Ari
It can be perfectly normal to lose interest in some of our hobbies and switch to something else. What I’m discussing here is less innocuous.
I was lucky enough to have financial security during my time of unemployment, and I understand that many folks do not have this luxury.
And still probably don’t, but who knows, I may change my mind at some point.