2 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Giving Up on Your Dream
By: Hope Oje
Tags: Life Lessons, Passion, Passion Project, Curation, Writing

That’s it. Pretty simple stuff, honestly.

I put the questions at the top of this post so that if you just wanted to know the two questions and then move on to something more exciting, you could easily do so.

If you’re interested in why these are the two most important questions to ask yourself to determine whether or not it’s time to give up on your dreams, keep reading.

This post was actually a long time coming. If there’s one thing I’m excellent at, it’s giving up and walking away. I’ve left a lot of unsuccessful businesses (and a really stupid relationship) behind over the last 7 years or so. And some of the ideas were actually quite intriguing, not to toot my own horn or anything.

I would link to stuff so you could see for yourself, but, you see, when I give up, I give up. So all relevant website domains are now expired. Old drafts have been deleted. No trace left of what once was.

The truth is: Any business can be successful.

People sold pet rocks.

A single web page with tiny ad pixels that were just barely legible made millions.

You can make a profit from anything if you go about it right. And I’m not discounting the fact that finding the “right” formula for a business/passion project can be difficult, but hopefully, you get the idea. It’s not impossible.

So, long story long, the idea isn’t the problem. Ideas are a dime a dozen. You can find any idea, at any time, in any place that works. It’s the execution, the consistency, and the resourcefulness that count. There’s definitely luck at play as well. But again, you get the idea. Any idea is a viable idea.

Yet, if there are no nonviable ideas, why do 95% of startups fail?

Note: In this context, when I say “nonviable”, I mean an idea that can’t/won’t make money. By the same token, I consider an idea “viable” if it can/does make money. Whether the idea of a pet rock is bad or good is irrelevant; it made money and, thus, was “viable”. So, I’d prefer to use “viable” vs. “nonviable” over “good” vs. “bad”.

The answer is So many reasons!

Money runs out.

People don’t invest.

People give up before the idea takes off. *raises hand*

The messaging sucks.

The product was never fully developed.

The target market wasn’t fully (or properly) identified.

The founders didn’t have good contracts in place and a change in leadership resulted in the business, ultimately, collapsing.

So many reasons! But not many, if any, of them really has to do with the idea, itself.

Why do I think that? Because scammers are peddling “cancer-curing” essential oils, magic herbs, shoddy exercise equipment, and all sorts of other nonsense. And even when these products consistently don’t work, people still line up to buy them.

And actually, I take back what I said earlier about good vs. bad ideas. Any idea built on the foundation of requiring deception to make someone buy something you KNOW isn’t helpful is a bad idea (but trust me, these ideas are still viable, nonetheless).

So why are the particular questions that I mentioned so important then?

Simple: Because these questions force you to take a step back from your idea so you can look at the person behind the idea.

Your success has little to do with the idea and everything to do with you.