Doing the bare minimum just to justify myself that I've given it a try, that it's alright if I haven't succeeded cause I did my part. Sounds familiar? Do you know what this really means? It means you're not taking responsibility for your failures. It means you're not learning from them. It means you didn't really commit to what you wanted to achieve. It means you're lying to yourself. Realizing that is not easy and worst, it sucks.
But once you realize that, you have two options:
Yesterday I decided it was enough. I'm choosing option 2 and I'm going all-in on it.
Last year I set up a new goal: I wanted to launch a product. I've been working on it since then; you can visit its page, and start using it straight away. Have you heard about it? Probably not. Do you know why? Yesterday I'd tell you that's because you're not part of my target audience or because you were not part of my network of contacts or maybe that it's your fault because you were not paying attention. But honestly, I know the reason is none of those.
I didn't commit to it 100%. I've been coding for months doing so much stuff (and so much meaningless stuff too..). In all these months I've built an MVP, changed the design 3 times, posted a couple of questions in IndieHackers, added some milestones to the product page, shared progress updates on Twitter, send invites to my friends and asked for feedback and... that's it. That's basically it. I keep adding more features, fixing bugs but nothing changes.
Now you probably know why you didn't hear about my product.
All those things are progress. They really are. And do you know what else they are? The bare minimum. Well maybe not the minimum but I know it's not enough. Just a handful of people are using it and it's my fault. No shame admitting that. What could I have done better? A million things: reach to more people, share more updates on IH other pages, search where my target audience was and send them invites.... I didn't even launch it on ProductHunt 🙄. I haven't done any of those things... yet.
I know I haven't done enough and I'm going to stop lying to myself. I know I'm not going to get the same results as the people that are putting 100% on it while I'm doing the bare minimum. And I know it's not about how much time you spend working on it. I've spent almost a year working on my product, but not in the smartest way.
But that's going to change. From now on, I'm going for it 100%. I'm going to work smarter, focusing on what needs to be done reach my goal and if I fail, I'll accept it knowing that I gave it all.
Wish me luck 🙌
PS: You know the funniest thing about this story? The idea of my product is to help people identify and achieve their goals and create new habits. I should've stopped coding and listen to myself more often 😅