There comes a time when you get to really enjoy doing a project. It’s something you can tell everyone about, you have some success, can show some work that indicates the project will be successful and everyone is cheering you on. You are having a great time with this project. The danger with this enjoyment is that you are lulled into a comfortable state of incompletion. As the Grateful Dead sing to us, “When life looks like Easy Street there is Danger at the door.” The Danger is wanting this euphoric state of partial completion to go on forever. Projects are meant to be finished. It takes discipline and a sense of adventure to leave the euphoria behind and finish the project properly and completely. After you complete the project you can enter the uncomfortable “Now what?” stage of the next project.
Every once in a while I go back and read this post because it was true when I first posted it, it’s true today and will still be true long into the future. If the goal is to complete the project, the project needs to be completed. The discomfort we feel between projects can only be cured by the next project.
While I’m writing this, I’m procrastinating on beginning another project because I don’t want to finish the project I have yet to begin. The next project is going to be a big one in terms of learning new skills and techniques and I really don’t want to start it because I’m worried about not having something great to follow the next big project. Silly, isn’t it?
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