How to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm?

For me, whenever I feel down, I always remind myself of several things:

1. From every single failure, I learn something new. Be it technical or business
2. For every new project, I challenge myself to learn something new by using new technology/frameworks or something that improves my skills.
3. I learn much much more than what I'd have learned in graduate school without having to spend a single penny
4. Thomas Alva Edison failed 10,000 times before invented a working lightbulb!
5. Colonel Sanders was rejected 1,009 times before KFC made it. And also, he started the business at the age of 65!

I can't imagine how your 7 projects can be complete "failures".

• Did they make you a better designer, developer, sales person, writer, business owner?
• Did you learn about yourself, your capacity to deliver, your collaboration skills?
• Did you learn valuable lessons, like "Damn, I'll NEVER _______ on a project again."?

It's not a failure then.

I don't know what you're building, but I'm concerned by the words that you use. Could you put what you're doing on pause for a few months to re-gain perspective and happiness?

If money is at the center of your concerns, could you add these 7 projects to your portfolio and take freelance work for a while? There is nothing shameful about that. It may even give you fresh new ideas for project #8 later on!

Take it easy, Matt :)

Great comments posted here. For me, it's always the excitation to start a new project that surpasses the fear of failure. If you can do that, you'll be good :)

There's nothing wrong with losing enthusiasm. Taking a break and rethinking things is cool to. Think long term - nothing wrong with not currently working on something huge. Why not do something small and fun that you know wont go anywhere?

Energy comes and goes, it'll come back at some point!

Try reframing your definition of "a worthwhile project". Surely some learning came out of those 7 projects. Perhaps your projects were not financially successful, but maybe you could spend some time pondering how what you learned in project 1 led you to an ability to do something in project 2 which led you to a key insight in project 3. And so on down the chain. Said another way, all these projects are leading you to a successful project where all the pieces come together.

What does help you to be enthusiastic?