How do you stay committed?

I recently made one of those realizations you've actually always known but never processed and understood.

The realization I had is that it's not really the products or businesses that fail, it's usually our level of determination to stay committed.

Make Rome Come To You

The more determined, the more the law of averages works in your favor. The less determined, the less you 'luck' out. With this in the back of my mind, all of a sudden when reading books or listening to podcasts about successful startups and founders, I kept seeing the theme of commitment being reinforced in pretty much every story of success I encountered.

Sure, there are things like best practices and traveling on effective roads that increase the odds of reaching Rome, but the reality is that even this is something that is almost willed into existence the more you steady the course.

If I had to boil it down for myself, I see a chain of events where the results either compound or get negatively disrupted. Something like this:

Work input > work output > input/output assessment > momentum > work input > ... and on and on it goes.

Art of Interpretation

Where most people most likely fail to stay committed is when they are interpreting the relation of input to output as negative because results are lacking; i.e. "what I've done has not led to the results I want and so there's no point to continuing".

In other words, it's not positive results that lead to building momentum; it's interpreting results as positive that leads to momentum being built. Where one sees negative results as learnings to build from, another sees it as a dead stop.

There are obviously smart ways to consciously do your input/output assessment, as well as what you do with it when the metrics are disappointing. Whether you're going to adjust or pivot, give up or try again, the thing that makes a difference in outcome is commitment.

Solution

I'm researching how indie hackers and solopreneurs stay committed and how they currently deal with challenges that make it difficult to not give up. My intention is to build a resource that can be of help to you if you feel this is something you regularly experience.

It would mean the world to me if you could fill out this quick 5-minute survey where I ask you a few open-ended questions.

In exchange, I'd be more than happy to include you in a select group of people who will be notified to try any solution I may come up with.

In any case, may you stay committed, always!