The Quitting Zone
Face it. If your working on a large side project that you hope to be profitable, you’re going to run into moments when you can’t stand the stench of anything related to your project. You’ve run into a whale of a problem and there’s no tiptoe’ing around it.
If you’re a human being like me, this usually leads to a lot of abandoned, half-baked projects. They could have been profitable, but your subconscious convinced you that “there was no way that you could get over that [insert random hurdle here], so why even bother continuing?
Quitting is the only decision that your mind can rationally justify. Hell, a week later, you’ll feel much better about the fact that you just tossed another project into the metaphorical gutter of unfinished work.
Clearly, your mind has forgotten, or simply doesn’t care about all the rationalizations you’ve made why starting this project would be worth it in the first place. You have entered the Quitting zone. You’ve been here before and you will be here again.
There is only one rule about getting passed the Quitting Zone: Do not under any circumstances listen to yourself. You feel overwhelmed, paralyzed, unable to continue, and ready to submit to the quitting gods.
Go do something else for a few days, and really think about your problem. It’s NOT AS BAD AS IT SEEMS. Talk to some other people, the solution might even be you need to seek other people interested in working with you.
No emotions last forever. The feeling will disappear and you’ll be all happy again ( Science! ). This is when you get back to work.
You didn’t start your product to “build skills”, you started in hopes of building a profitable product. Shipping is a skillset in itself, and mastering the Quitting Zone is a whopping part of it.
