And I found that you don’t have to go climb a mountain to learn this one
I looked at all the comments I had to review.
I sat, overwhelmed, thinking “where do I even start?”
It was a Saturday and I was reading through the feedback from my editor. Once I got past the defensiveness in my thoughts, I started thinking about my plan to resolve each comment. Then thoughts about all the other things I had to do came flooding in.
“I have to review sales for the week.”
“I have client deliverables pending.”
“I have to clean the house.”
The internal questions followed. “Is this what I should be doing with my time on a Saturday?” Then the question I ask ever so often popped up “Why the hell did I choose to do this? Write another book?”
I realize I ask myself that question with every project I’ve chosen to do.
The answer is usually the same.
And it has nothing to do with the obvious markers of success – in this case, the book itself.
The real reason I keep choosing these projects is harder to express.
The real value of a self-directed project is to learn about yourself.
Know thyself.
That’s the reason to engage in this kind of project such as a book or a business.
It’s about knowing you can actually do the things you set out to do.
That’s it.
It’s about learning who you are in the world.
One day during my research for my book about finding meaning, I went down a rabbit hole to understand why humans write and create symbols. I wanted to understand where the need for mathematics and numbers came from. The research took me as far back as 70,000 years ago and the cave art early humans made.
Will any of this make the book? I’m not sure.
But the next morning, I woke up feeling like I had learned something new. The purpose of my writing is not just to put words on paper that others can read. That’s one outcome. A more important outcome is the learning that happens along the way.
I’m transforming my beliefs, updating my mental model, and seeing the world differently.
All this is happening while I stay accountable and open to criticism. Testing what works. Collaborating with others.
And no one asked me to do any of this.
But I continue because I enjoy learning about myself – my strengths, my weaknesses, keeping track of my journey.
Just like those cave artists that were including symbols to track animal movements, understand the chaotic work around them, the stuff they were doing fostered their personal development. In turn, that documentation on rocks helped their community survive better.
No one asked them to do it, but some people ventured into those caves to begin.
When you build on your own terms, the feedback loop is immediate and unfiltered. No one to blame. No one to credit. Just you and the work. There is no misalignment between your actions and the boss’s initiatives. No, you set the initiatives and act on them.
When things don’t go as planned, you either adjust or sink. Regardless, if you’re honest, you’ll learn something about who you are.
A project you choose to work on is a mirror that reflects your internal realities.
It exposes your fears, self-doubt, procrastination, and overthinking.
It allows you to be more honest with yourself.
When you don’t build projects like this, life becomes monotonous, and you don’t get to learn about yourself without the external markers that a lot of times depend on other people. You don’t know what you don’t know.
Every distribution experiment (crowdfunding, NFTs, pilots) has taught me more about myself than about the market.
So what do you do when you have interests and want to learn about yourself?
Most people just jump into projects.
Sometimes, this is the mistake. They never put an end to the new activities. So it drags on.
That’s why it’s important to start a project that you can finish.
The deadline project
The best projects have constraints. One of the main constraints is a deadline.
So here’s what I’m testing – the deadline project.
I have been thinking about this book I’m currently writing for at least 4 years now. I structured it back in 2023 in a notion document. I left it in there and did nothing with it. I brought it up in conversations. It wasn’t until last year when I put a deadline on it, that’s when it started coming together.
Now I’m four months away from publishing it.
What I’ve found is that a clear deadline is the forcing function.
And if I had to boil it down, what works is a loose direction, a clear output, and a date. That’s the whole system.
I’d invite you to try it out:
Here’s an example with my book:
Loose direction (idea about finding purpose the deeper we go into the automation era). Clear output (book). Date (publish by Oct 2026).
This applies to any project, even a software pilot I recently completed.
Loose direction (system to help founders and solo practitioners efficiently execute their go-to-market plans). Clear output (software tool). Date (Run a 2-month paid pilot with 10 users)
Now, the output might not be what you expect when you get to the deadline. For instance, with my pilot, instead of 10 users, I got 6. I wish I had gotten all 10 but I learned so much from those 6 users about the clarity I need to attract more users in my next iteration, and whether I want to continue with the tool.
The deadline was the forcing factor to act.
The action helped me learn more about myself.
Closing Reflection:
My reaction to the unresolved comments on my manuscript wasn’t abnormal.
That’s because I had felt it before. With other books and projects, I had experienced the resistance and found myself on the other side, where it’s not just about the outcome (the book, the revenue goal). It’s about how you show up, doing things you said you’d do. That’s who you become by doing the work, and I don’t think you can get that anywhere else. The catalyst to get going is to constrain it with a deadline.
Put a date on it.
So here’s a question I have for you: “What project are you sitting on that a deadline would finally unlock?”
Yours truly,
Nifemi
P.S. Every month, I work with a handful of technical founders and solo entrepreneurs to streamline their go-to-market strategy and execution. If you’re building something and would be interested in working together, reply to this with “Let’s chat, next week.”
