You find something that seems like a good idea at the time. You decide to put some effort into this “project”. Not just effort, but sweat, blood, tears, money, emotions, your soul. Not to mention your heart. You fall in love with this project. And for awhile it looks like your idea will become something great. It has the potential to, that’s why you started to invest in it in the first place. The more attached you become to this project, the more it begins to seem as though it has a mind if it’s own. It starts creating solutions to obstacles on its own. It begins to move in directions you didn’t plan for. It does things, as if alive that you never expected.
You stop working on the project because every time you take it in a direction to progress it, it seems to steer itself in a completely different direction. For awhile you work with it in that new direction because it seems easier that trying to fight it back on track. But the money required to maintain it in this unexpected way is more that was budgeted for the project and eventually you have to stop working on it all together. Occasionally, you check back on it and try to make it fit back into the original plan, quickly realizing it is just a huge waste of time and money. At this point the project is out of control and making decisions that will affect it until it is complete and possibly beyond. Some of the directions it chooses affects your other projects too. The new ones that you are just starting and have high hopes for. The stress of the failing project is too much and you begin to doubt everything you used to be good at, wondering if you will ever be able to make a successful project.
Time and time again you consider abandoning it all together. But you always come back remembering how much money and time you’ve invested. And at this point your heart is completely involved. It begins to be more than a struggle to try to keep the project on track, your other projects are being completely ignored. You’re losing sleep over it. Not eating. Depressed. Stressed more than you’ve ever been.
You wake up one day and realize that no matter how much you love this project, it will never be what you wanted it to be. And the more you try, the more it will fight you.
It’s over, you have to give up, knowing that you will never finish this project because it has moved beyond where you can even have input on its direction. Much less be in agreement as to what steps to take next. It completely consumes you, you family, friends and co-workers can all see it and tell you frequently how it’s affecting your health, your mental well being and your finances. You see it now and it has come to the point that you need to make a decision.
Should you continue pouring everything into this project because you hold it so close to your heart and it means more to you than anything ever has before. Or do you cut your losses and move on, knowing that you did everything you could to try to make the project successful.
I think it’s time to move on. As much as it hurts to make that decision, I know that I tried everything I possibly could to make it work. I can’t afford to continue trying. I’ve given up everything and all I get back is a broken heart and disappointment. No matter how much I love it, I can’t make it anything it wasn’t going to be on its own.
Sometimes you just have to walk away before it kills you.
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