Dave and I went to business school together. Ever since we have talked about what it takes to leave behind a steady job for the sake of building something of our own. I made that jump in June and Dave is on his way as well with the founding of Ritc. Congrats, Dave. Welcome to the movement!
I felt it even today. The encroachment of failure. The feeling like I was losing ground, giving up, just letting opportunities pass. It’s not a good feeling, but unfortunately it’s one that I’ve been quite familiar with throughout my life. When I think about it, the feeling has been part of a larger pattern that I feel has stymied my progress many times.
Step 1 – It starts with an idea or an opportunity. I’m a fairly creative person and I find that I see opportunities and new ideas in almost everything. Mostly this is a good thing.
Step 2 – Sometimes I get very excited by whatever crazy scheme I’m thinking of, so I start pursuing it in one form or another. Usually I conduct some kind of research to test the viability. And that leads to Step 3.
Step 3 – Obstacles. The first major potential failure point.
Step 4 – Fear, Doubt and Uncertainty (FUD).
Step 5 – Give up on idea.
Step 6 – Disappointment in myself. If I didn’t become wildly successful at my idea (due to not actually trying or committing to it), I feel like a loser and I mark it as another personal failure. A failure of my own character. This is very hard to digest. You see for me, my expectations of myself have never been different from my wildest aspirations, and so I set up a system for myself where I always feel that I am an underachiever because I don’t immediately succeed.
Step 7 – Get over it.
Step 8 – Repeat the process all over again. Weirdly, I’m a very optimistic person when the time horizon is long!
Did you catch the step where it all breaks down? It’s definitely not Step 3. Everyone deals with multiple obstacles on the way to achieving anything in life.
Step 4? I used to think so, but I’ve come around on that. I mean, if that’s the problem then I’m in big trouble – I just felt it TODAY for crying out loud! I do believe that over time, I can decrease the FUD factor, but I don’t believe it will go away and I don’t believe that is what REALLY gets in my way.
Step 6? Well, this is something I definitely want to change, but I don’t think it’s the key. I don’t think the key to my success is so…self-aware.
No, it’s not the steps where I feel resistance, whether real or perceived. As I’m sure you figured out already (faster than I did I’m quite sure), it’s Step 5 – giving up in the face of FUD. Giving up is the surest path to not achieving your goals.
But over the last year or so, as I’ve been building my new product and preparing to launch a new venture, I have started to take a slightly different approach. It’s called – DO IT ANYWAY (AKA Don’t Give Up At The First Sign of FUD). I’m going to be afraid. I’m going to be uncertain. I’m going to have doubts. But I believe in what I’m doing, and I’m not going to let those things stop me anymore.
This approach has been working. It’s hard, and sometimes I take 3 steps back before I recover a few steps forward, but I’m making progress. I have a long way to go, and many more opportunities to succumb to Step 5, but I know that I will succeed on some level if I just keep going.
I know that success in my venture is far from guaranteed, regardless of whether I give up or not. In the end I’m not sure that really matters. What matters is that when my daughter asks me if I tried to achieve my dreams, I will be able to tell her yes…I gave it my best shot. That’s my goal.
Dave Goldberg lives in the Washington D.C. suburbs with his wife and daughter. He loves building products, the semantic web, and daydreaming. He is currently building Ritc, a platform to connect, automate, and build applications on the web. You can check it out at http://ritc.io.
Christa Avampato 