Knowing When To Quit – It Is Okay!
A few days ago I made a major decision for my online business. It wasn’t an easy decision, but after I made it – it felt right.
I gave up on a project I’ve been working on for awhile.
Scared & Need to Push Through Or The Project Isn’t the Right Fit?
Knowing when to move on from a project is really hard. I know you’ve probably heard the same types of comments that I have – people give up and move on too soon or if they would have just tried one more time they would have made a success out of the project they were working on.
So the question is – how do you know when it’s time to move on from a project and when you’re scared and need to push through that and find your success?
Unfortunately, the answer isn’t cut and dry.
How Things Changed in My Business After I Started This Project
I decided to at least put this project on hold and focus my attention on what’s making me money right now. I enjoy working on my current site Niche Starter Packs. At the time I came up with my project it lacked direction and a plan. I’m still working on this, but I took a HUGE step yesterday and inventoried my products to help me find what I’m selling and where I need to focus.
Niche Starter Packs sells done-for-you content to bloggers, coaches, and entrepreneurs. It saves people time and makes it affordable to purchase pre-written content for their blogs, emails, products and much more.
When I decided to do this other project which is almost exactly the same at Niche Starter Packs but focuses specifically on the health niche – I didn’t have a plan at all, I wasn’t making many sales on the site and I was creating content only.
I definitely didn’t put the effort into it to be proud of what I had done with the site so far.
Gradually things started changing on this site for me. I’ve been slowly developing systems to get content made. I changed the look of the site. I created a sales page template that is easy to use. I also added more components to the products that I sell. This does two different things – 1. It adds value for the people who purchase it. 2. It increases the price.
So, as you can imagine making these changes started created a change in myself about how I feel about my site. My site has come a long way since I started the other project and I’d like to really focus on it and see what I can do with it.
Why I Decided To Put This Project On Hold (Or Quit Altogether)
That brings me back to the health niche site I’ve been creating. I decided to put it on hold for a few different reasons. It has been taking me WAY too much time to get it up and running. I’ve had the idea for almost two years and I’ve been consistently working on it for over 7 months. This means I’ve divided my time between that site and Niche Starter Packs.
One major problem is that I wanted everything to be perfect. The logo, the branding, the wording…yet even doing that I still am not even close to being done. I’ve changed the theme multiple times, I haven’t finished setting up the shopping cart and all the essential pages of the site are a mess.
In this time, I’ve seen two other people that I follow rebrand and completely change the look and feel of their website and I’m still sitting here not even ready to show my site to the world. I’m not comparing myself to them, but it opened my eyes to the fact that it shouldn’t be taking me this long to get my site up.
Possible Reasons the New Project Didn’t Work
I honestly don’t know why I can’t seem to get it done. It could be several different things – fear of failure, fear of success, don’t want to grow something that big (I had HUGE goals for this) or imposter syndrome. Whatever it was I haven’t been able to move past it. This is a hard thing to admit to myself or anyone else.
Take a look at this article:
How to Know When to Quit a Project, Goal or Business by Tara Gentile
The article references Nathan Barry the owner and founder of ConvertKit. He said something that really stuck out, “Who you want to be matters as much (or more) than what you want to achieve.” This could also be a big reason the site wasn’t where it should have been. I wasn’t really sure that I wanted to only work in the health niche. I absolutely LOVE it, but I felt boxed in.
Because the site isn’t close to being ready and I’ve spent so much time, money and effort on it with absolutely no results I’ve decided to put it on hold. Is this the right decision? For me, for now – yes.
Will I come back to this project? I’m not sure, but I know that focusing on the site that is up and running will be a better use of my time and less stressful for me.
I know that I’m not the only one facing these challenges. If you are – you’ll have to do the same thing that I did and really think about what is best for you and your business.
Here is an article that gives some questions you could ask yourself to see if quitting your project is right or if you should push through it all and continue:
12 Guidelines For Deciding When To Persist, When to Quit by Rosabeth Moss Kanter
If you’re still not sure check out this article:
Quit Already: 7 Ways to Know When To Cut Your Losses by Kosio Angelov
And remember…
It’s okay to move on.
Have a great and productive day!
~April
