Personal Story | EP22 | Full-Time Founder Because I Fail | EasyEnigma
The Uncomfortable Truth About My Pattern
This might sound strange, but I'm intimately familiar with the word "founding" because I'm intimately familiar with failure.
I've founded more projects than I can accurately count. Lost track somewhere after the tenth or eleventh attempt. Each one started the same way: massive enthusiasm, careful foundation-building, detailed planning. Then... nothing.
Interest fades. Momentum dies. The next shiny idea appears on the horizon, and I'm gone. Leaving the half-built project for someone else to complete or, more likely, for nobody to complete. ð
The Graveyard of Good Intentions
Let me walk you through the wreckage. There was the e-commerce store I spent three months setting up, launched once, then forgot about when I got excited about affiliate marketing. The YouTube channel concepts that never made it past five videos. The mobile app idea with a full business plan that died in development.
Each failure taught me something valuable. But none of them taught me the one skill I actually needed: finishing what I start.
Starting is easy. Starting is fun. Starting feels productive because you're making visible progress—domain purchased, logo designed, first post published. The dopamine hits are real and frequent in the beginning.
But somewhere between the exciting start and the distant finish line, the dopamine stops flowing. The work becomes repetitive. The results come slowly. And that new idea starts looking really, really appealing.
Why Persistence Is My Kryptonite ð
I've analyzed this pattern obsessively. Tried to understand why someone who's clearly capable of starting things struggles so much with finishing them. The answer isn't pretty.
Finishing requires tolerating boredom. It means showing up on day 247 when nobody's watching and nothing feels exciting. It means doing the same basic tasks repeatedly when your brain is screaming for novelty.
Starting gives you immediate validation—"Look, I'm building something!" Continuing gives you nothing but the slow compound effect that won't show results for months or years.
My personality gravitates toward immediate feedback. I want to see results now. The "plant seeds and wait for harvest" mentality feels like torture when there are so many other seeds I could be planting instead.
That's the real reason I'm a "full-time founder"—not because I'm successfully running multiple businesses, but because I keep starting new ones when the old ones stop being fun.
The Miracle of This Moment ðŊ
Which makes my continued writing on this blog genuinely miraculous. Seriously. I'm not being dramatic or self-deprecating. Based on my historical pattern, I should've abandoned EasyEnigma months ago.
Something changed. Not everything—I still feel the pull toward new projects constantly. But something fundamental shifted that let me keep going when past me would've quit.
Part of it was public commitment. Writing these personal stories creates accountability. People read them. Some respond. That creates just enough external pressure to push through low-motivation days.
Part of it was understanding the compound effect intellectually, even if I don't feel it emotionally. I know that article 100 has exponentially more value than article 10, even though writing them feels identical.
But mostly? I finally accepted that persistence isn't about feeling motivated every day. It's about having systems that function when motivation is zero.
The Systems That Save Serial Starters ðĄ
Here's what actually works when you're a chronic project-abandoner like me:
Schedule over motivation: I write at the same time on the same days regardless of how I feel. Motivation is optional. The calendar is not.
Minimum viable progress: On low-energy days, I do the bare minimum. One paragraph. One edit. Something. The streak continues even when the output is terrible.
Automate the start: I don't decide whether to write—I decide what to write. The action is automatic. Only the content changes.
Track the streak: I know exactly how many consecutive weeks I've maintained this. Breaking that number would hurt more than the discomfort of continuing.
These aren't motivational tricks. They're survival mechanisms for people whose default setting is "abandon ship when bored."
What Persistence Actually Looks Like
Most persistence advice is written by naturally persistent people who don't understand what it's like to struggle with finishing. They talk about passion and purpose and finding your why, as if the problem is insufficient motivation.
That's not the problem. I have plenty of motivation—for starting. The issue is that motivation runs out long before the project finishes, and then what?
Real persistence for people like me looks like this: showing up even though you don't want to. Writing even though today's topic feels boring. Publishing even though the quality isn't where you wish it was. Continuing not because you're inspired but because the system demands it.
It's not glamorous. It doesn't feel like "following your passion." It feels like work. Repetitive, unglamorous, often frustrating work.
But that's what separating actual builders from chronic starters requires.
The Projects That Didn't Make It ðŠĶ
I think about my abandoned projects sometimes. Wonder what would've happened if I'd persisted with the first e-commerce store instead of restarting with a new niche every six months. If I'd pushed through the boring middle part of that YouTube channel concept.
Maybe they would've failed anyway. Probably, actually. But I'll never know because I didn't give them the chance to fail properly. I just... stopped.
That's the real cost of serial starting—not the time wasted, but the potential never realized. Each abandoned project represents a parallel universe where persistence might've created something valuable.
EasyEnigma is my attempt to finally see one of those universes through.
Why This Time Might Be Different
I'm not magically fixed. The urge to start new projects still hits constantly. Right now, I have three other business ideas floating in my head, each seeming more exciting than writing this article.
But I've learned to recognize that feeling for what it is: my brain seeking novelty because current work requires discipline. The new ideas aren't better—they're just newer.
This awareness doesn't eliminate the temptation, but it reduces its power. I can acknowledge the urge without acting on it. "Yes, brain, that sounds fun. We're finishing this first."
The strongest possible start for your success story isn't starting at all—it's building something with the persistence to finish. If you're like me and struggle with follow-through, choose projects where infrastructure forces continuation. Check out our Hostinger Student Discount guide. When you've invested in proper hosting and a real domain, abandoning gets psychologically harder. That friction becomes an asset.
Learning to Finish by Not Quitting ⚡
Finishing and not quitting aren't the same thing, but for chronic starters, not quitting is the prerequisite skill.
I haven't finished building EasyEnigma. It might never be "finished" in any meaningful sense. But I've stopped quitting it, and that's progress.
Every week I continue writing is proof that my pattern can change. Every article published despite low motivation is evidence that systems beat personality.
I'm still a full-time founder in the sense that I start things constantly. But maybe, finally, I'm becoming a full-time builder—someone who occasionally finishes what they start.
The Challenge for Fellow Starters ðŠ
If you recognize yourself in this story, you're not broken. You're not lacking some magical persistence gene that successful people have.
You just need better systems to compensate for your natural tendency toward novelty-seeking. Your brain wants new challenges? Fine. Make continuing your current project the challenge.
Track your streak. Make abandoning painful. Automate the starting process so continuing requires less willpower. Schedule the work when energy is highest.
And maybe, like me, you'll finally see one project through to something resembling completion. Not because you suddenly became a different person, but because you built systems that work with your personality instead of against it.
From serial starter to reluctant finisher, the journey continues one article at a time. More unfiltered truth about building businesses when your natural instinct is to quit are coming your way. Stay connected with The EasyEnigma Journal: Behind the Scenes for the raw reality of learning persistence the hard way.
Know a chronic project-starter who needs to hear this? Someone with a dozen half-finished dreams? Share this before they start another one. ðŊ
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