Is there anything you’re doing in your life right now that seems like a gigantic waste of time?
As someone who is constantly experimenting, I can honestly say I’ve had more than my share of projects that have gone nowhere or have only grown marginally over the course of years and even a decade or more.
The Value of a Project
Now, the value of a project is in the eye of the beholder. And there can be rewards outside of monetary compensation that call to you, be it fulfillment, connection, impact, or contribution.
The value of a project is in the eye of the beholder. Click To TweetAnd you can never truly know the impact you’ve had or are having on your audience. You can’t know the difference you’re making in everyone’s lives.
Those who choose to be a part of the conversation are generally in the minority, and there are bound to be dozens or even hundreds who are silent in relation to those who express and voice their opinions.
Medium is the same way. We are all part of a community, and we “clap” or leave comments on each other’s articles – and it’s easier to get engagement here than on your own self-hosted WordPress blog – but you’re still not going to hear from everyone who reads your articles.
So, there can be many reasons for starting or sticking to a project. And it’s important to be mindful of those before we call it “quits” on anything.
What Happens When Your Sense of Worth Shifts?
But there’s a strange thing that starts to happen as your self-esteem increases.
When you don’t feel great about yourself, you tend to do things out of a sense of duty and obligation rather than excitement and joy. You stick to something that hasn’t yielded the expected results and keep saying to yourself “maybe tomorrow” when there may have already been hundreds or thousands of tomorrows behind you.
But when your self-esteem increases, and you begin to recognize that you are worth so much more than you’ve ever given yourself credit for, your sense of priority begins to shift.
You may feel inclined to put certain projects on pause and to stop working on others completely.
This is exactly what I’m looking at doing.
The Renegade Musician
At the top of March, I published my first newsletter/digital magazine in the form of The Renegade Musician. I have been promoting it non-stop and have been sharing a promotional video across multiple Facebook and Twitter accounts. Not to mention, I’ve referenced it in dozens of articles already.
It is perhaps too early to say, but so far, I have only had a few takers, and being a “pay what you want” offer, it has not generated any money.
The fact that I could have spent the same three to four hours cranking out two high quality News Break articles and getting fair compensation for them gave me pause.
Now, I see great potential for The Renegade Musician. It could educate my prospects on my business and the products and services I offer. It could become a great retention and referral tool.
But become is the operative word. And considering I have spent the last 12 years building an audience for just such an offer, the take up rate is just too low to be worthwhile. It is obviously a mismatch for an audience I thought I knew and understood well.
Now, every failure is a lesson. Which is why I’m not salty about this. And I have plans for The Renegade Musician, although not the plans I originally had for it. I will be talking more about this in a future story.
To be fair, you never know what the results of the campaign will be until it’s over. I’m going to give myself until the end of the month before I make a final judgment call.
The point is that the same three to four hours could have gone to something that would have had a guaranteed payoff. In the past, I may not have even made such an observation. But now that I have an increased sense of worth and confidence, I’m seeing things a little differently.
Time is not unlimited. Experimentation is worthwhile, but it’s fair to say not all experiments will have a payoff.
Letting Your Self-Esteem Lead the Way
Can you let your self-esteem lead the way?
It’s so easy to doubt yourself. And the more you doubt yourself, the less you trust yourself with future decisions. This is exactly what I was trying to communicate when I wrote As the Spirit Moves You.
If we want to increase our sense of worth, we must learn to trust ourselves more. That begins with following through on the commitments we’ve made to ourselves – big or small.
Beyond that, it’s about letting yourself take the leap, even when it seems risky.
Your next move might seem illogical to your supporters, contributors, collaborators, or even team. It might seem insane to your mastermind group, coaches, or mentors. But maybe your intuition is trying to tell you something. Maybe it’s leading you in the direction you ultimately want to and are meant to go in.
Maybe your new ideas aren’t just a flight of fancy. Maybe there’s value in letting yourself explore and experiment, even if it’s only to confirm that your new ideas don’t work.
Conclusion
I know you’ve seen me flip flop on this. Focus or experiment. Stay consistent or follow your passion.
The truth is there are different tools for different situations. And with the situation I find myself in now, I feel to let my self-esteem lead the way. I feel to trust myself.
What is something your self-esteem has led you to do? Did you follow through on it? What happened?
Let me know in the comments.
Pay what you want for the first issue of my digital magazine, The Renegade Musician.
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