I have finally published this blog in October 2022.
The website and my first articles were ready for many months before that already.
What happened in the meantime?
Do you know the feeling of wanting to create something? You have an idea, a vision, a thought you want to share with the world? You want to express yourself, help others, and make a positive impact in an area you are passionate about?
If yes, did you already do it? Or are you still working on it?
Through my journey of publishing this blog, I realized how easy it is to get started with an idea, but how hard it can be to actually follow through with it and to really complete it. Jason Calacanis has described it well in this simple but powerful quote:
Starting is easy. Finishing is hard.
While my own experience is related to this blog, the overall topic of starting a personal project but not finishing it is pretty common. In this article I will analyze the different stages of my creation process and what actually (partly) blocked it. I wish learning from this experience can help you to finally finish your own creative project as well - whatever it is.
Step 1: The idea
People often have a very clear memory of when they first had the thought of creating something. Suddenly a spark comes up during a random moment, and the idea is born.
For me, I remember my moment very vividly as well. It was day 6 of my 10-day Vipassana meditation camp, about which I have already written another article. I was walking around the front yard of the building, thinking of what would excite me to work on in the future. Suddenly, a picture emerged very clearly in front of me: I wanted to write a blog to share my experiences of working abroad. I wanted to help people in similar situations as I found myself in, and also to help others planning to have a similar career as me to learn more about it. I could visualize the structure, the areas I want to cover, even the title "Young Leader Abroad" very clearly. I got very excited and wanted to write these thoughts down (which I actually couldn't since I wasn't allowed to bring any writing materials for these 10 days) so I was worried I would actually forget it before the program would end. Luckily I didn't.
Step 2: Getting started
Having the initial idea is just the first step - actually getting started is then the first real barrier to overcome. This one I still found fairly easy, since usually having born a new idea is a very motivating feeling which often leads to getting straight to work (in my case, I already started a few days after returning home from the meditation class).
I thought first, I would need a platform to set up a blog. I knew some portals such as Medium exist, but somehow I felt compelled to have my own website, not just publish on someone else's. I was already interested in learning about web design and started an online HTML/CSS coding class in late 2021, but soon realized the complexity of building a website from scratch so I didn't get too excited about it and dropped it again. I had a few prior experiences with Wordpress, but found the tool complex and non-intuitive to use (as a web design amateur). Once I actively started to look into other options, I found Wix.com and immediately loved it. It has many templates readily available which allow you to first build an easy structure, and gives you the option to fine-tune it later. The website for my blog was set up fairly quickly and easily.
I finished building the website in March, bought the domain (surprisingly youngleaderabroad.com was still available) and already started to write my first articles. It all happened pretty quick, I enjoyed spending one day per weekend at a coffee shop writing, often together with a friend. Soon I had finished my first 4 blog posts related to different topics, the creation process felt very energetic. I showed the articles to some of my friends, and their feedback was good - seems I was on the right track. It felt great - until the point when I realized that now my blog would actually be ready to be published. Then it suddenly became scary.
Step 3: Anxiety kicks in, and you get stuck
It was very easy to get started. However, once I realized I am getting closer to the finish line, I started to get uncomfortable with that thought. If you put your thoughts, experiences and values freely out there in the world, you never know who will read it - and what they will think of it. The internet can be a brutal place - in online forums or comment sections of social media you often see people fighting, arguing, belittling the achievements of others and publicly criticizing them. It makes you think
"Will this also happen to me? Do I really want to be so visible? How will my coworkers react if they are seeing this? Is this a bad idea?"
I started to come up with all sorts of reasons to delay publishing the blog:
Editing editing editing - better proofread the website and all articles one more time
Better send that article to another friend and ask for his/her feedback first
First wait until my contract with my current company is extended
Is there any design on the website which could still be tweaked a bit?
Any pictures that could look nicer?
Have I already referenced all sources on the website? Better check again
I should have enough articles lined up after publishing, better write a few more first
XY just happened, better deal with that first (insert random excuse here)
The list goes on. Some parts made sense and were necessary steps to do, but with some topics you reach a dead end, since you would never be fully done. I am sure that even after the 20th editing round, especially since I am not a native English speaker I would keep finding 2-3 things that could be written better. The website could always be optimized - I never created a website before myself. At this point, I realized I wasn't working on meaningful improvements anymore, they only served the inner perfectionist who will never truly be satisfied anyways. When you want to eliminate every possible risk of failure, the easiest way to not fail is to not launch your project at all. Very safe indeed!
This phase is dangerous. Here, it's easy to lose focus and just go back to Step 1: You get stuck, eventually you will have another new, brilliant idea, and just switch your time and energy to start a new project - this is much easier than actually finishing the current one. I believe many great ideas die in this phase.
I was talking with my coach about this step, and there is one more aspect that I did not consider at first: Besides being afraid of failure, people can also be afraid of success. Questions come up, such as "Do I deserve to be successful with this? What would it mean for me if this works out? Do I actually want this to be a success?" I learned that besides seeking pleasure and avoiding pain, our mind subconsciously also prefers certainty over uncertainty. Not publishing the blog? Life remains unchanged, good! Publishing the blog? It's hard to say if and what changes that would mean for me. Since our mind's default mode wants to keep us at a place where we are safe and avoid unnecessary risks, it tends to keep us at bay - and to keep us from taking the leap into the unknown.
Step 4: The tough last meters before the finish line
The previous phase was by far the longest, I was stuck in there for almost half a year. After having proofread my website and the first articles countless times, after getting the approval for my blog by my former company and after having realized that with my limited web design skills I probably couldn't improve the website much more anymore, I started to run out of reasons to further delay the process. Only one, but a powerful reason remained - maybe it's better not to publish it at all. Why take any unnecessary risks? At this point, I realized it has been half a year since I was writing the articles, for some I already felt the need to update their content again - why not just leave this topic and do something else? It seemed so tempting.
Finally, after a recommendation from my coach, I was reading the book The War of Art (not to be mistaken with Sun-Tsu's famous book The Art of War). This book was written by Steven Pressfield for people doing creative work. Overall the style was different from what I usually read, but it did have some parts that really caught my attention. The book described very vividly that the last meters of a (creative) race are the toughest, since resistance will keep increasing the closer you get to the finish line. A few quotes from the book were standing out for me:
“The more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.”
“The more Resistance you experience, the more important your unmanifested art/project/enterprise is to you — and the more gratification you will feel when you finally do it.”
“The amateur believes he must first overcome his fear; then he can do his work. The professional knows that fear can never be overcome. He knows there is no such thing as a fearless warrior or a dread-free artist.”
Reading through the book, it became clear to me that what I was feeling was very normal - it's part of a creative process, of putting your work out there for the world to see it - especially if it's for the first time. The part describing that the more you are afraid of something, the more you actually should do it resonated with me, and put me more at ease. Understanding the reason for the increasing doubts at this point encouraged me to finally do it - I did not want to be paralyzed by resistance any longer.
My original motivation to publish the blog was to help other young people in similar situations as I had been in - it should offer advice I wish I got before I moved abroad and became a manager. Helping others now seemed increasingly more important than avoiding risk for myself - there was a bigger goal at place. I was ready to take the leap.
Step 5: The final win
I still remember the day when I finally published my blog. It was a Friday morning, I was set to travel to Tainan for an Austria-related event I was speaking at. I swore to myself - this will be the day where I will finally publish my blog. I put a post-it note on my door, with one simple word on it: Publish! I committed to not leave my house before I finally did it - my train ticket was already booked, the timer was set. This limitation should give me enough pressure to ultimately finish the last meters of the race.
Clicking on "Publish" in Wix was tough but actually doable - so far, nobody would see it yet anyways, I doubt Google would rank it that high so soon. The bigger step was number two: To actually share my new, officially launched project with my network on LinkedIn.
I had a high pulse, and was very nervous when I drafted my post, and then again took a few rounds to edit it. After 15mins, my heart was beating fast, it was time I finally clicked on the "Post" button ... ... ... only to immediately delete it again a few seconds later! I didn't like the thumbnail of the post, so I needed to select a new picture first. Having repeated this step of posting - checking - deleting 3 times, finally I deemed it as acceptable - probably also because I was almost late to catch my train and just had to accept it if I still had any intention to make it to the event on time. My plan worked!
The rest of the day I was very nervous, with every notification on my phone popping up anxiety kicked in - would the comment be positive or negative? How would my network react? In the evening, even though my speech at the event was quite short, I still had troubles remembering it well. It took me a while to calm down from the tough race over the finish line - seeing that the first feedback was overwhelmingly positive, I slowly started to enjoy what I had accomplished.
Eventually, it started to feel really great that I finally have overcome the fear - my blog was finally online, my original goal to help other young leaders to better prepare them for their role is becoming reality. With every new publish post, the initial resistance to publish and to share is getting lower, I have expanded my comfort zone by quite a large stretch - a very rewarding feeling!
Step 6: The aftermath
Finally, it felt great to overcome the internal resistance - my comfort zone has expanded, I got to know myself much better and overall the feedback I got was very positive too. 1.5 years later, I am still surprised to keep hearing friends and coworkers actually reading the articles and tell me they learned something from it, signed up for the medication camp themselves etc. - seems the blog was able to help others in different ways already.
The final question here: What did I learn from this experience?
It is easy to start something, but hard to actually finish It didn't take me much effort to get started with the website, to write the articles, even to share it with friends. The closer I got to finishing it, the higher the risk of just stopping it and working on something else instead. You need persistence to actually follow through with your idea, not get distracted by the next possible direction.
When times get tough, a strong supporting network is very important Besides your own dedication to a project, you also need a supportive network. For me, this was my coach, as well as several close friends who not only read my articles and gave me valuable feedback, but also gave me courage to keep going.
Perfectionism kills creativity While it's okay to have high standards for your work, aiming to be perfect in all aspects of your project at the start already can be a major roadblock. It's totally okay to launch first, get feedback and then improve the details later. If you keep finding more reasons for editing while you are basically already ready, it's time to aim for A- instead of A+ to reduce your pressure.
Anxiety is getting closer towards the finish line Fantasizing about quitting your job is easy, actually handing in your resignation is hard. Looking at that beautiful woman in the bar is easy, actually going over and saying hi is hard. If a certain step is big for you and takes courage, it's normal to feel increasing internal resistance the closer you get to actually doing it.
Your mind wants to keep you safe, gives you many reasons for not doing it My coach has introduced this as the "gremlin" - this voice in your head, telling you whatever path you are on is a bad idea, and it's better to stop pursuing it. This voice wants to keep you safe. Following it will not let you make any critical mistakes - growth, however, lies on the other side when you acknowledge your fears and doubts, but march on and do it anyway.
People are overall kind and supportive You always see these negative people on the internet, trolling others and belittling their achievements. If you start a personal project and go live with it with a positive purpose and good intentions, my experience (also from what I heard from friends who did something similar) was that people generally really appreciate it and also return kindness. The overall feedback for this blog was overwhelmingly positive and constructive, which helped me to improve it even more and motivated me to keep working on it.
Overall, I never regretted the decision of going live with the blog. Despite and probably because of the struggles, it was one of the best exercises for personal growth I have done so far. If you are still on the edge whether to start or launch your personal project or not - I highly recommend you go for it! Let me know if you need any help with it.
A beautifully written article full of wisdom @Daniel Aschauer. I’m so glad you pressed “Post” :)