Overcome Project Fear and Start Working Today

If you are anything like me, you have more ideas for projects than you know what to do with. Personally I’m always thinking up new ideas and concepts for websites I’d like to start and always putting them on the back burner for fear that they will fail or take way too much to complete. Apparently the old saying “You never know until you try” has never resonated with me. Over the past 3 years or so I’ve probably started (more like barely started) over a dozen different projects only to lose interest or never fully commit to starting them. What’s the problem? Fear!
It’s hard to admit, but yes I am afraid of my own projects. Afraid that they will take too long to complete; Afraid that they will never be successful; And afraid that I don’t have the knowhow to do everything that needs to be done to make them successful. I’d like to think that I’m not alone and that those of you that have never really had a largely successful website are having similar fears and doubts. But the better thing to think about is how to overcome these fears and take the necessary actions to bring my ideas to life and transform them into something positive. As Michael Nemeroff, CEO of RushOrderTees, a custom apparel company says that the fear of failure is in fact a powerful motivator that can be transformed into a driving force.
So how can we beat our fears and kick our procrastinating habits to the curb? Well there are a few tips which I am starting to employ that are making project management easier and my fears disappear:
1. Divide and Conquer – The saying that “Rome wasn’t built in a day” has always had some wisdom behind it. Any project worth doing probably isn’t going to be completed in days or weeks, but will probably demand months of your time. It’s disheartening when you pour months of your own time and effort into a project only to see another 8 months of needed work and time to see it to completion. Instead of looking at the project as a whole look at the project as the sum of its many parts.
Simply put, take the project and divide it into smaller, more manageable tasks. Map out your project and list all of the little steps it takes to get to your final goal of project completion. Then take the items you KNOW you can complete from the list and complete them one by one. Be sure to cross them out when they are completed to get the sense of accomplishment.
2. Incentivize Your Tasks – It’s human nature to have the “What’s in it for me?” attitude. Why should I complete this task or how will I benefit from doing this? Besides the end result of having your project completed and hopefully becoming successful, consider rewarding yourself as you complete milestones and cross things off your list. By telling yourself that you get to go out to a fancy dinner or get to have 1 day of complete video game vegetation if you complete one of your tasks, you will WANT to complete the tasks even more.
3. Embrace Mistakes – One of the things that I’m learning more and more each day is that you are bound to make mistakes. They are simply unavoidable. Instead of letting them bring you down and instead of using them as a reason for not moving forward on your projects….embrace them! Realize your mistakes and learn from them. Use what you’ve learned to not make the same mistake again and to help your next project or phase of your project succeed.

4. Know when to get out - A meeting with a business broker in New Jersey inspired me to write about this; it is paramount to know when it is time to quit, when you can’t continue growing it and sell it and move on. Motivation is an asset and if it gets lost, it is irreplaceable.
The moral of this post is to simply move forward with your projects no matter what. Don’t let yourself use fear as an excuse. If you truly think your project has the potential to succeed then what do you honestly have to lose? Perhaps its a few months of your time and some money. Are you willing to exchange that for the possibility of making it big? As far as I know, those who have made it big didn’t sit back and wonder IF they should start their next project or IF they were capable of completing it. They set their goals and went for it.