What's blocking my progress?
jasonleow • 7 Nov 2023 •
A Twitter friend struck me with a great question yesterday, because he was feeling similar too:
Don’t you find yourself hitting the brick wall and not growing past it? What do you think is the main reason?
YES. Every. Effing. Day.
That brick wall and I are close buddies now, for the past three years at least. I definitely feel blocked. Everyday I’m trying my best but I feel like I’m just inching ahead. On tough days I just feel like quitting, for sure. But the hardest thing wasn’t the hard work. I’m no stranger to it. I welcome it in fact. What’s tough is feeling like there’s a magician locked up inside me but I can’t bring it forth, for whatever reason.
It’s like the Greek myth of Sisyphus, who’s punished by the gods to roll a boulder up a hill for eternity. The maddening nature of the punishment to an eternity of useless efforts and unending frustration was reserved for Sisyphus due to his hubristic belief that his cleverness surpassed that of Zeus himself.
Perhaps there’s some hubris I believe that blocking me. There always is.
Breakdowns are often breakthroughs for me.
But the second half of my friend’s question got me thinking objectively. I’m impatient to hit my goals but perhaps the problem—the hubris—is that I’m just not good enough yet. How so?
-
Skill level not up to par yet. Coding. Marketing. I still need lots more practice to be able to ship fast, and ship confidently. And to reach and sell to customers. I’m just skimming the surface in both.
-
Not trying enough bets. I feel I still hold back too much. I could still ship more ideas. Maybe my existing ideas aren’t the kind which will get me to my goals. So just got to keep experimenting, keep shipping.
-
Life stage. Family and kids means I’m just slower to ship, have less time, energy and bandwidth. It also means I can’t take huge risks with four other mouths to feed. I got to keep working on my consulting despite wanting to go all in on indie hacking. There’s not much I can do about this. Maybe will get better as kid grows older and more independent.
So there. Felt good to list it out.
Time to do something about that list!
Comments
We are in a similar stage in life. Though I think from what you share, your kids may be younger than mine.
Regardless, I can totally relate.
I don’t know if you are, but I used to compare myself a lot with others (successful indie hackers) and there was a lot of wrong about that.
Everyone is at a different stage in life, with different conditions in different environments.
Secondly -and you allude to that- is the frequency of those “bets”. You did something really cool recently which brought along some momentum: the social good psi app. A nice little tactic might be to code something small frequently. Doing that helps yo build skills but will also open your eyes to opportunities and problems or pains that could be good to solve with a product that people will pay money for!
@Winkletter I’m a big fan of the Cynefin framework. Agree with your assessment too to probe-sense-respond… in fact, I often feel like I need to go to the chaotic quadrant to act-sense-respond.
Btw don’t get me wrong - I’m not complaining about having kids and family. I wouldn’t trade it for anything, not even success in indie hacking. Just acknowledging the cold reality of the situation.
@drodol I used to compare a lot too. Initially it helped bring out the competitor in me and push me forward, but when results continued to elude me, the comparison became kinda toxic so I tried to do less. But seems to be more under control now.
Yeah the social good app really helped kickstart some momentum! I’m glad I did it. Now I can borrow that momentum for Lists Kit. Thanks for mirroring that back. 😊👍
You had kids. There’s the problem. You’ve already passed the baton. 😁jk
Here’s my input. You’re operating in a complex problem space, right? No simple cause and effect solution… no complicated analysis is going to tell you what’s a sure-to-be-a-hit product. And you don’t need to stabilize a chaotic situation.
So, if you do want to make a valuable product, you have to keep making bets. Expand your awareness. What the Cynefin framework calls probe-sense-respond. The walls you hit are important data. Kids expand your awareness, so don’t worry about that. And skill isn’t going to help if you don’t know what skills you need.
If you want to get a job, then focus on skills. If you want to make a product, develop skills as you go and let any problems you have with your family responsibilities guide you to a potential hit product.
Of course, that’s just what I say after spending the day reading about the Cynefin framework.