Comet Nwosu: How To Go Beyond The Starter Phase and Achieve Your Goals

Are you a starter? Can you define yourself as somebody who likes the excitement at the beginning of things but tends to lose their mojo midway? Do you think you fall into the category of people who can’t seem to pull anything off to the end no matter how hard you’ve tried? However, you term it, if your answer to one or more of the questions above is a yes, then I wrote this for you.

The ability to start and finish a task or goal tells a lot about a person. It depicts a dedicated, hardworking, passionate, motivated, and go-getting spirit.

Why? Because it’s not so simple to complete what one has started. If you’re able to start something but cannot continue, there are reasons why this is so. This may not be concrete for specific reasons but it’s applicable in a more general term.

Let’s delve into some of these reasons below:

Your motivation to start was external

Any venture you get into that wasn’t majorly self-motivating is bound to flop in some way. This is because you cannot control some external factors giving rise to your goals or tasks. For instance, if your motivation to kick-start something was based on the people involved and along the way, they decide to go their separate ways, that can affect the longevity of your project.

If people motivated you to kick-start something you didn’t really feel like doing, probably to please them, it’s also bound to flop, regardless of them being involved in it or not.

In essence, if you rely on others to forge ahead in something you want to do or don’t want to do, it’s possible you won’t get to the finish line.

There are other external factors such as weather, country of origin, hardly changeable things like this.

How do you manage this? Check your inner compass and do whatever it’s aligned with. Even if others advise or suggest to you, make sure it’s in sync with your being, or what you determine you want to do.

You didn’t have passion for that thing in the first place

Do you remotely like what you’ve started? Motivation can only get you so far but if you don’t have more than enough passion for the project you are tackling, it’s likely not going to go too far. Passion is like fuel, the more you feel, the more you give. And sometimes, even when you don’t feel like it, you keep going.

Passion is what reminds you of why you wanted to start that thing in the first place too. That’s the spirit behind continuing and hopefully, completing a task.

For example, I enjoy writing. But it’s not always the easiest thing to do, especially now with a kid who needs my attention 24/7. Other times, it’s harder when I have my occasional meltdown, but no matter what, I keep hitting that publish button. I keep going because it’s my passion. I’m passionate about writing, which, on its own, is therapeutic.

So, if you want to figure out why something you started isn’t getting to the finish line, ask yourself if you even like it in the first place. It is what reminds you of why you wanted to start that thing or set on that journey. 

How do you manage this? Start first, the motivation will follow later. The results or little wins will double down the motivation.

You’ve gained new insight and taken a detour

There’s nothing wrong with changing our minds; it is one of the freeing prowess we have as human beings. It’s not a surprise to think that what got you here isn’t necessary to continue with – it’s normal to shift gears and totally try something else, leaving the other task at a halt.

How do you manage this? Reevaluate your options and make sure it’s worth abandoning the old project for something else.

The task isn’t meaningful anymore

Sometimes, we soak up things for a worthy cause but along the line, we may realise that the meaning or intention for which we delved into those things aren’t coinciding with our spirit or relevant to what the initial result was meant to give. In this case, we’re forced to discontinue.

That’s where the “who, what, why, how” questions come in. Questions like:

• Who was I doing this for? Is the person still relevant, or is the gesture still relevant to pull through?
• What am I still into this project for? What do I hope to achieve in the end?
• Why did I start this venture?
• How did I think to bring this goal to fruition when the signs weren’t clear enough?

You know, as humans, we are bound to rethink and change our minds from carrying on from something simply because it lacked meaning or importance at some point.

How do you manage this? Always evaluate your goals or tasks from time to time to determine that your purpose for going ahead with them is still credible.

Lack of self-esteem

I saved the best for the last. Sometimes we don’t know we are on the right track with the things we started, and as a result, we give up simply because we lacked the belief in ourselves to pull it off.

If you lack self-esteem, it’s going to deny you many opportunities to grow and learn. The fear of not completing a task because you feel you’re not good enough will cause you further heartache and even lower esteem. So, it’s best to start with the mindset of a novice no matter how much you think you know and go from there. That helps you take it slowly and make progress along the way rather than thinking so high and rushing through things only to flop along the way. For example, many “one-hit wonder” musicians tend to go with their all, and lose it along the way after, perhaps, getting carried away with the success from the previous hit.

How do you manage this? Learn to be humble and compassionate with yourself as you partake in your venture. That way, no matter what tries to strain you, it won’t get you due to these mental and emotional toolkits you began with.

Some people will tell you starting something is always easier than continuing. For others, like me, it’s harder to start but somewhat easier to get on. For some others, they swear it’s way harder for both.

But I’ll say this, mainly to the people who have had the boldness to start but can’t seem to continue: you’ve done the hardest part of the job, which is starting. All you need to do now is determine the type of loophole sabotaging your efforts to move on, or might await you, and deal with them appropriately.

It could be a lack of self-esteem, in which case you need to build your character to the point it supports your being. It might be a lack of meaning to your venture, for which you need to go back in time to what led you to want to start it in the first place – the meaning is somewhere there.

New insights along the way could create a loophole to an ongoing project, but in a better way, if you let it. Lack of passion is another factor that will gravely cripple your plans along the way. So you need to make sure you cannot do without what you’re into so that when the going gets tough, you keep going.

To crown it all, your motivation to start anything shouldn’t let anywhere else than from the internal realm or else you stand the risk of losing it as your motivations fluctuate in the future.

Always make your start-up a you thing at first, so that you can continue ‘continuing’, and get to the end-point.

Goodluck.

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