Picture this. You're walking outside on a cold winter morning, maybe to get some breakfast or meet a friend for coffee, when it hits you. Another idea. And not just any idea. The idea. All the other project's you thought of but never finished? Hogwash! This one's different. This time you're actually going to finish it.
After breakfast you get home, sit down at your computer, open your terminal, and...
Nothing. No motivation. Desire to code? Out the window. So you close your laptop and watch some TV for that sweet, sweet dopamine rush.
If the above scenario has happened to you, you're not alone. I've had many a project idea and the majority of those are sitting in a folder with a Last Modified Date of more than 2 years ago.
How do we actually get a project not only started, but finished? I mean, it seems so simple. We have an idea, we code it, we deploy it, done. Right?
See, this is where the disconnect is. We have the initial motivation and that leads us to this idealistic path of completion. But when we sit down and open our laptop, all the complexities of how to actually bring the idea to fruition come flooding in. What framework should I choose? How can I add authentication? Should this be a web app or an offline app? Mobile?
The motivation gives us the spark to start but to actually follow through with some elbow grease we need one thing: consistency.
Consistency is simple: decide on a cadence for working, show up at that cadence, and work.
And yet, consistency is one of those things that's easy to understand on paper but difficult to practice. For me, if I don't show up every day or every week, whatever time I've settled on, I feel like I'm not being consistent. Then that leads to self-doubt and eventually I give up and the process starts over.
But recently I realized trying to be so picture-perfect took the fun out of it all. And isn't that the whole point of this? Isn't this supposed to be enjoyable? To get over these false starts, I needed to realize that consistency isn't static. If life comes my way and I need to change my schedule to code once a week or once a month, then so be it.
So next time you are hard on yourself, remember this: Be kind to yourself. Realize that motivation is fleeting but consistency keeps us on track. If we give ourselves some grace, eventually we'll write a bit of code, and over time those bits will turn our initial motivation into something tangible and finally we can say we've finished.
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