Am I wasting my time on this?

You have just spent your time on your dream project. Song, record, band, website, business.  Some of your friends know about it. Maybe they even heard or saw incomplete versions of what you were working on.  But now its done. You have to put it out in the world and you are just praying that it garners the attention which can translate into perhaps some dough so you can keep doing what you love right?

Then the first reviews start coming in.  Can you handle the truth?  Is it the truth?  What if all the naysayers are just wrong? What if they are right?  how do you know?  Its a little easier to quantify in a business venture than in music which can be subjective to say the least.  But now that we are in a nearly completely democratized online world, the public gets the final say.  Is anyone listening, streaming, downloading, buying your stuff?  Is it any good?  Is it too good? Is it ahead of its time and will eventually find an audience?  Can it be retooled and made to be the dream you first envisioned?  Was it a waste of time?

I'm good at asking questions, and maybe not so great with the answers.  But luckily there are a lot smarter people out here than me. :)

There's a wonderful little book called The Dip by Seth Godin.  It helps you objectively and very creatively look at when something you are doing is worth continuing to do.  That's a pretty massively important issue, given that the one thing none of us can ever buy, the most precious thing we have is TIME.   If you are wasting time on something you can never get it back.

Now of course I am also a firm believer that every failure (in whatever sense of the word that means to you) is a great higher education if you allow it to be and in fact, the adage really happens to be true, "if you've never failed you haven't really tried too hard".  I have failed.  Various times at various things in various areas of life and business.  I have been in a cul de sac (which is a dead end as opposed to a dip as defined by Seth's book) and spent months and years toiling at something which amounted to nothing.  It is frustrating. It can be paralyzing .

But, it can be liberating to know that you pursued something with all your heart (if you did) and that it's time to move on.  Starting over has its up sides.  You can't use those business cards, but you get to keep what you learned about yourself and others and how you relate to others. You can't use those posters or demos maybe, but you have the memories of what worked and what didn't. You probably have a ton of laughs. Most ventures are kind of a hoot at some point whether its a band or a business venture.  Remember the good times and learn from the bad.

Ultimately, whether our ideas, songs, movies, plays, websites, businesses or blogs becomes hugely popular or successful in a monetary way isn't really up to us after we have done all we can to make it the best we can.  And that IS liberating.  Go forth and create and change the world for the better, (whether we like it or not).