In the Dip
Need to posts this to try to clear my head.
Since the end of January I've been working a mobile app. I've never properly finished a project before, I always thrown the towel when I was too long in the state of a dip and started over with a "more promising" new project.
It's insane. I made such good progress from January till end of March. I guess mostly because I knew what was needed to do. Since then I need to bundle the App up with payment functionality and AppStore descriptions and Screenshots. This feels impossible for me. It drives me nuts how big of a deal I make out of this. I don't know exactly why. Because I'm ashamed what people think might think of my work? No, or at least I don't think this is it. I wish I knew what is holding me back. I try and try to uncover what my fear might be or am I just to lazy? Afraid of learning new stuff? Why does it feel so impossible.
Nevertheless, it's also impressing myself that I'm talking and trying to figure this out still. As already mentioned, I would have usually already started another project. Omg this is hard, but I don't know why it's hard. What a paradox.
I hear you brother. It's way easier to build something awesome than to publish it and risk getting negative feedback (or even worse, no feedback). And yet this is where the rubber meets the road - we can only get to where we need to go by gently and consistently pushing against our fears. Taking a small step in the direction that scares us the most, every time, every day. And you can only take very small steps, because anything larger may cause a negative reaction and break your spirit.
There are multiple techniques to work through fear that go beyond "just doing it". Meditation is very helpful if you can commit to doing a bit of it daily. It builds emotional resilience and a way to observe your fear without succumbing to it. The Work (thework.com) is a very powerful technique to process your negative thinking and dissolve it. And the app that I'm working on for highly sensitive people can be very effective in processing fear and other blocking emotions.
Bottom line is stumbling is inevitable, but falling into a long and dispiriting dip can definitely be avoided if you have the right tools.
Hi Philip
I've been in a similar position and I guess there are no easy answers. We can't always uncover what is holding us back.
I read Do the Work and this made me feel that I wasn't unique in hitting blocks. Basically you have to accept the doubt and just JFDI!!
There are all kinds of tricks for setting small goals each day, and just getting those done first. The goals can be deliberately laughably small, such as just read one web page on how to exec payment functionality. Then make sure something gets done each day. (ref Atomic Habits)
Maybe give yourself a set time frame (2 weeks) to get as far as you can without any questioning, and then stop.
Also if you can find a Mentor, this can help. You can talk things through with them and they can keep you on track.
Why not post back to the group, and give us a date when your app will be ready! Commit to it and get it done! Imagine what it will be like when it's done, and you are earning real money from it!
Matt
By the way, if your app is anything like your webpage, then it will be awesome. I love the bash theme on your site - very cool. I also had a quick look at some of your projects, which are really impressive.
Thanks Matt!
Glad you pointed out some resources, will try to look into it. Never read a proper book on this topic but recently I read a summary of "The Dip" by Seth Godin and heavily enjoyed it.
Funny you mention mentors. Today I outed my blockage to a few colleagues and they wanted to know more about it. I already could feel the motivation come back while trying to argue while I wasn't able to get stuff done. To one of them I committed a certain progress till the end of this day, which I actually achieved 🙌
The other was offering helping me out but I couldn't figure what exactly I needed. However, we agreed to have him ask me for progress each Tuesday. I imagine this might help me being more consistent with my progression!
I've made it! My MVP is now live in the App Store. It's quite basic, but hey, that's the spirit of an MVP right? :)
You can check it out here if it's available in your countries App Store
=> https://apps.apple.com/de/app/offwhite-paper-templates/id1497290238?l=en
That's the spirit! Just look how much you've achieved since January!
"Humans hugely overestimate what can be done in an hour, but equally hugely underestimate what can be done in a year".
Do the work step by step, and lots of steps cover the path.
Keep it up!