Thread: Ecelctic Serendipity

Alright, so I've spent the past 2 or 3 weeks reading this forum and another 200 or so business related websites non-stop (when I say non-stop I mean for at least 10 hours a day). I have been looking into websites that have been seeing a large amount of success in the short time they have been implemented, and I've searched through 70 pages on coolbusinessideas.com. I have been re-reading T.M.F. and I currently have about 36 tabs opened on firefox because each website leads me to another relevant and interesting article. During this time I have written a 13 page word document filled with my business ideas from the years past (I have always had business ideas and I always wrote them down in my phone but now I consolidated them), new ideas, and basically I've been trying to figure out and organize my goals, an idea, a plan, resources I will be utilizing, contacts I know, skills I have, assets I own, etc... I feel like this is all necessary planning, but I'm not sure if it is procrastinating too.
I am a pessimist/realist but I never felt it was a problem until it seemed like it could potentially be hurting my process to begin any venture. What I mean by this is I am my own worst critic, and I go out of my way to find flaws in my own logic, thus slowing down the start of any one of my processes. This is meant to be beneficial; to try and outsmart myself or make myself think critically in order to think of any flaws and how to get around them. And I do this because of my past (you can read my bio), but I feel like I have already wasted 3 years of my life. Although I have been making tremendous steps in improvement, it's not enough. This is making me anxious and enthusiastic to start, but I don't want to jump into something and waste more time by going headstrong into a dead end project.
My wide array of common knowledge has helped me in situations that my friends seem to think of as serendipity, and it's funny because it's not luck but a matter or preparation. I always seem to be prepared and that is why I am not caught off guard often, and when I am it is easy to roll with the punches. Again, these are all areas that I feel comfortable in and that is why what my peers see as a huge gamble, I just see as a well calculated risk. So my question is should I be continuing my planning stage or just pick an idea and go for it? (Forgive the terrible grammar and run on sentences, I have not been sleeping much and I have slept 5 hours in the past 3 days haha)

Your best bet to overcome your own resistance is to have a customer.

I took me 3 years to write a book but every week I was re-motivated because people kept ASKING for the book.

When will it be done?
When can I buy it?

Having an active customer loop helps because the market is showing you demand.

So while I can understand having doubts about your plans and ideas, when you put those ideas "out there" and the market shows interest, it quickly can cast aside doubt.

Originally Posted by MJDeMarco

Your best bet to overcome your own resistance is to have a customer.

MJ, how far in advance did you have pre-orders for your book?

Originally Posted by MJDeMarco

Your best bet to overcome your own resistance is to have a customer.
So while I can understand having doubts about your plans and ideas, when you put those ideas "out there" and the market shows interest, it quickly can cast aside doubt.

Thanks @MJ, I appreciate the honest feedback and I'll start putting my ideas out there in order to do that. It's a simple solution but sometimes an outside perspective or opinion helps motivate me by either solidifying what I already know, or moving me in the right direction. Keep an eye out for my future threads about a diary of starting my own business and using the tools you suggest in T.M.F. Thanks again!