In the past couple of months, some of my friends quit their projects or are debating on quitting.
Quitting involves anything related to change. When you change something, you are getting rid of something to change either doing something new, or giving free time for yourself. Both are important. Most people don’t like being “always on”
As a serial quitter, I told them my advice….
For the focus on this article, we’re going to talk about this in the form of projects which is basically a tangible creative endeavor that you build for the sake of potentially monetizing it. However, the word “project” can easily be interchangeable to “relationship”, or “next job” or “cryptocurrency”.
Someone posted a great venn diagram that I generally agree with. If a project’s end goal is to have you gain knowledge, get money, or is generally fun, you should do it. There is more incentive if those are combined.
(from James Altucher,)
At the end of the day, if the project becomes a chore, or becomes stressful, or unsustainable, then you should consider giving up. Some might say it’s the coward’s way out, but I disagree. Life’s too short to be stressed. To help you, I’ve build internal systems I’ve used to decide when to give up, or when to stick with it.
Value in the long run and the short run
Before I even think about doing a project, I think of three things:
What’s the worst that can happen?
What’s the best that can happen?
What is the minimal amount of effort I can give to stress test this idea?
So let’s put My Food Job Rocks in this equation
What’s the worst that can happen? – I make a fool of myself, no one listens, and life goes on. I lose $500 dollars
What’s the best that can happen? – I build up my network and meet amazing people
What is the minimal amount of effort I can give to stress test this idea? – 6 episodes starting with my friends. Setup would be around $500 dollars.
Or let’s put switching from Leclerc Foods to Isagenix. The same rules apply:
What’s the worst that can happen? – My resume looks sad because I was only in Leclerc for 1.4 years. I potentially will make less money since Isagenix paid less, but no overtime (This later was proven wrong as I had time to make money podcasting). Also I wouldn’t travel as much (this would also be proven wrong)
What’s the best that can happen? – I have a comfortable corporate job where I create products and I would have a great work-life balance to focus on other things like having a life (This was also proven wrong)
What is the minimal amount of effort I can give to stress test this idea? – I interview with Isagenix and see how far I can go. Then I talk to my mentors and dad when I get an offer. I can’t turn back if I decide.
Or how about switching my chips from AZ Asian Food Review to My Food Job Rocks?
What’s the worst that can happen? – I miss out on great Asian restaurants and potentially free food events in Phoenix.
What’s the best that can happen? – My Food Job Rocks synergizes a lot with my actual career as a food scientist. Also, I would be saving money and calories because I wouldn’t be eating out so much,
What is the minimal amount of effort I can give to stress test this idea? – Do both projects for 1 month, see what’s more enjoyable and go for it.
Or joining something like Founder’s Institute
What’s the worst that can happen? – I lose $800 bucks and I’ve embarassed myself infront of the whole Phoenix Startup community as a food scientist with no technical knowledge.
What’s the best that can happen? – I learn how to pitch products and build things that require grit because this course is really tough.
What is the minimal amount of effort I can give to stress test this idea? – Pay $800 and see what happens.
If these parameters don’t ruin your life, or don’t give you a ton of stress, then it’s a smart thing to do. If it’s rational that you won’t lose anything by just trying, then it’s something you should persue.
But also remember:
It’s perfectly ok to be satisfied with a typical American life. You can work 8-10 hours a day, go home to your wife and kids, and watch TV for like, 3 hours a night. It’s perfectly ok to spend your weekends just lazying around and sleeping in, or go to that potluck 20 minutes away. That life is awesome, it’s the perfect life, right? Only insane people wouldn’t want that.
There is a decent percentage of human beings who want more than this and it’s a good and a bad thing depending on your reasoning. It’s a good thing if you want to impact the world with all you got, it’s a bad thing if you do it for the money.
The Rule of 6
Most of the people I follow say to try what you want to do x numbers of times. If you like, it, keep going.
X=6
Tim Ferriss recommended his followers that if they wanted to start a podcast, do 6 episodes and if you like them, then keep going.
James Altucher has a 6-month rule when it comes to bigger ventures. If you start a business or do a pivot with your business, if you like it, keep on going.
The Rule of 6 makes sense. It’s just above a few which gives you enough effort and validation to test if this actually works.
Doing something at such a single digit number is a smart way to validate something you like to do. 6 is good enough where you don’t feel lame but it’s not a big commitment. It’s enough to brush off an annoying friend who asked. “So when you gonna start that podcast?” It’s a safe answer to say “Yea I tried 6 episodes, not for me”.
This also works a little for resumes. As you can put a job on your resume if it’s longer than 6 months (anything less is not worth putting on your resume).
Consistency Helps Decide
The most important thing I tell people is that you must be consistent in your work. I always recommend if you want to start a project, do something consistently. This could be said, a podcast episode every week, LinkedIn post every day, doing maintenance on your site every week, cold call every day, or developing processes for 3 hours a day.
After 110 episodes, I’ve never missed a podcast a week. In fact, there are periods where I double down now.
Being consistent is hard, but the payoff is tremendous. Being consistent when it comes to progressing on your project is extremely important in terms of not feeling pain in doing it.
Essentially, consistency helps turn “work” into “routine”. By doing this, you eliminate stress in the activity and it feels like a necessity in your life.
There are two motivators you can try to make you more consistent. They help me keep going.
Personal Branding: As you post weekly, you imprint to your audience that you will always be there for them no matter what. Your presence when you post at 7:00am on linkedin is part of their routine and if you don’t post, you’ll ruin their day. I’ve talked about this quite a bit, but I think this mindset is really important, especially when it comes to building up people who will really support you. In fact, I would say the biggest reasons why I have sponsors is because my work is consistently high quality and my sponsors trust me to deliver good content on time.
Deliberate Practice: It takes 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to be an expert at something. This is now a common mantra popularized by the one and only Malcolm Gladwell. Whether it’s guitar, product development or even podcasting, it’s important to develop a way to well, practice! Practicing is really hard, it takes a lot of time and a lot of insight. So if you make practice part of your life’s routine, then it gets easier.
Here’s an article from a book I’m reading that talks about practice:
Tom Kelley goes on to tell a great story about a student who loved music and hated to practice. He thought that if one is good at something, you didn’t “have to” practice. This student had the incredible opportunity to meet YoYo Ma and during the meeting said how great it must be not to have to practice. YoYo Ma responded to the student that he still practiced six hours a day.
You’ve got to work at it.
Again, practice is hard, but if your goals is more about being the best, then you have to practice. And what better to practice than to also document? If you’ve been with us since the beginning of My Food Job Rocks, then you’ve seen practice in action. Practice so you can be so good they can’t ignore you.
But what are you truly willing to sacrifice to make your dreams a reality?
Is it time?
Is it money?
Maybe your relationships, platonic or otherwise.
There will be times that you’ll think if it’s even worth it.
I’ve talked with many people who’ve given up and who’ve pulled through. Everyone has their own story about each experience.
Unfortunately, I’ve found no conclusion. But for me, if I feel happy, fulfilled, and maybe it gives me money, then it’s enough validation to keep going.
In fact, the most canned answer I can give to people is:
“You can figure it out, I believe in you”
