How can you learn to see beyond what you can actually see?

Ever failed to see a project all the way through to the end at work? Ever picked up a musical instrument and given up after just a few weeks? Ever got stuck because you thought you had exhausted all avenues? You’re not alone.

Starting any new project, course or other adventure can open up the path to all sorts of new opportunities, but if the shine wears off too quickly, the door can quickly close on any chance of success.

Worse still, the more that you get into the habit of abandoning things, the less likely you are to realise your ongoing business objectives or achieve your personal dreams. However, adjusting your mindset in subtle ways could help you to make the most out of your opportunities.

In this article:

we look at some of the main avoidable reasons why people and businesses give up on new projects; and

provide some ideas on how you can start to see beyond your obstacles and roadblocks, to give yourself the best chance of seeing your projects through to their conclusion and achieve the success that you deserve.

Never gonna give you up…

Rummage through the lyrics of most record collections and it won’t take you long to find something which extols the virtues of perseverance, or sticking by something or someone. However, in a results driven and fast moving global economy, the minute it feels as though ‘achieving results’ might be drifting out of sight can signal the end for any well intentioned project.

One of the main reasons why work or educational projects fail early on, is because they hit a brick wall, which in turn, plants a seed of doubt in your mind and stops you from seeing the long game of finishing that project successfully.

Depending on the nature of the project, the consequences can be severe, for example:

falling behind more innovative competitors in the market place;
failing to finish studies and getting the qualifications needed to start a desired career path; or
employees losing their confidence and a business suffering as a result.

The unvirtuous circle of abandonment

Sometimes projects should never be embarked upon in the first place, take walking across the Arctic in a tee shirt at the height of winter for example! However, assuming you have started a project for valid reasons, if you start to allow the seeds of doubt to be sown each time that you reach a major obstacle and begin to doubt your own abilities (or of those around you), the more likely it is that you will start use the obstacle as an opportunity to blame the project as a bad idea.

In turn, the chances of abandoning what was a perfectly good idea increase and when you start your next project, you may have unconsciously programmed yourself to hit the abandon button too readily if that project also proves difficult, rather than working to find a solution to any impasse that you have reached.

The bigger danger

However, there is another more grave danger of adopting the ‘abandonment’ mindset. If you start to blame the project idea whenever you hit a barrier, then there is a risk that you will begin to think that any similar project can never be worked through successfully.

If you then begin sharing that mindset with others working on the project, they may also start to adopt that way of thinking and any ideas that they have to get the project back on the right track may either be dismissed out of hand or invalidated, because blaming the project and abandoning it may feel much easier than the perceived pain of having to find what may feel like an unobtainable solution to a problem.

Weakening the ‘group-think muscle‘

It then becomes easy to see the real reason why so many good projects fail, because once the seed of doubt is sown on something, it can spread like wildfire amongst a group of people. Unless the overall optimism and collective thinking of a group can find a way to work through the stumbling block, then unfortunately, the seed of doubt sown in one person’s mind can end up derailing a whole project.

Getting a project back on track

So how do you prevent the abandonment mindset from setting in and give yourself and others the opportunity to harness the most from working through problems that can arise in a project?

Give a guitar to three different people and….

If you were to give a guitar to three people who had never played an instrument before and asked them to come back after six months of lessons and perform something, you could end up listening to some interesting performances! In a worst case scenario one or all participants may have decided to use the guitar as firewood well before their concert debut!

However, there is a reason why some people go on to be incredible music artists and much of it lies in the type of seed that they plant in their mind to tackle overcoming the various technical difficulties that an instrument presents.

Listening, experimenting and improving

Being able to play a guitar without it sounding like a bag of snapped elastic bands requires a number of core skills which are also vital to seeing a project through:

Listening:

Learning to play an instrument requires the ability to listen to it and to a teacher, so that you can take on constructive help on how to improve. If you shut off your ears to the instrument and/or the teacher, then it’s unlikely that you will take anything on board to help you develop.

Similarly, advancing a project requires the ability to listen to others and take on board constructive ideas and feedback to alleviate problems that you might think are insurmountable.

Experimenting:

To get the best sounds out of an instrument requires a great deal of experimentation. How you sit, breathe and strike a string with your fingers all affect the ability to play a guitar well. The art of sitting, breathing and plucking effectively in themselves require a deep understanding of the mechanics of the body. It is not unusual for musicians to develop playing problems which can temporarily or permanently affect the ability to perform at a high professional standard. However, those who successfully overcome playing issues usually seek help and advice from others early, so that they can gently experiment with new approaches to playing and remove any old bad habits which have created the underlying problems.

Similarly, reaching an impasse in a project can require some experimenting, brainstorming and adopting new approaches to looking at things. That means removing the ‘seed of doubt’ from the mindset, seeking the help of others and opening yourself up to their thoughts and views. Many of the world’s greatest inventions and discoveries have come into existence as a result of adopting a flexible mindset and experimental approach, which in turn can open the eyes to new ideas and improvements along the way.

Teach and be a student at the same time:

Music students rarely have their instrumental teacher on hand for more than an hour a week and often far less than that. In between lessons, students have to develop the skill and awareness to become student and teacher in one, constantly monitoring their technique, use of the body and sound for obstacles and problem areas to be worked upon.

When working on a project, it can really help to adopt a similar level of awareness. Where are the pinch points? Why do you think something might be failing? How can you get it back on track? Who do you need to engage with and listen to in an unbiased and constructive way to help get things moving again? Adopting a teacher/student relationship and always keeping a watchful eye on things can also prevent self-doubt and the blame game from creeping in and provide a supportive framework to approach project difficulties with.

Ultimately working on projects requires a management of expectations, but that also means ensuring that the expectations of yourself and others are reasonable and achievable and that neither teacher nor student gets too carried away.

Go back to why you started the project in the first place

When you start to doubt that you can get through an impasse in a project, it can help to go back to why you started the project in the first place:

What were your original hopes and fears?
Why did you take on the project?
Is the obstacle a result of those original fears, new fears or something else?
Who might you be able to speak to help you to get back on track?

It is important to stress that confronting road blocks on any project are not unusual. Running out of time, money, energy and ideas are all part of life – but that doesn’t mean that a project isn’t worth seeing through to the end.

The more that you abandon projects, the harder you will find it to overcome future roadblocks. However, by confronting the obstacle in front of you, rationalising it and coming up with options on how to remove it, will allow you to develop your critical thinking and resilience. Often the fear of not feeling that you’re good enough to remove an obstacle can be the very thing that stops you from removing it in the first place. The skill is in putting both the fear and the obstacle to one side and putting yourself in a vulnerable position through which you can have an honest conversation with others to find a way of getting a project back on track.

Collaborate and have fun!

Succeeding in any project is ultimately a team effort. Whether it’s a big project at work or getting through an exam, you will need a supporting cast to help you all or some of the way.

Just like a rock band, collaborating and having fun is all part and parcel of learning, experimenting, listening and helping each other along the way. Watch any great band from the 1970s in concert and you will see that the quality of the music making is a result of relaxed co-operation on stage. However, behind all of that, there will have been difficult rehearsals and roadblocks too, which are all worked through to bring a great performance to life.

Often where projects don’t succeed, it’s not because they aren’t great ideas, but because the rock band spirit is missing. If you feel like you’re working on a project alone, then stopping to re-engage with others can work wonders!

Which project will you kickstart back into action today?

Working on any lengthy project can be a daunting experience, from the 4,000 word essay through to your first major work assignment. Doubting yourself or others at an early stage can prove fatal to a project’s success, but it doesn’t need to be that way.

Letting go of the habit of planting the seeds of doubt and replacing them with open and honest dialogue, listening, teaching, learning and focusing on quality of performance, rather than the end result can all play a huge part in removing perceived obstacles to the success of your project.

Ultimately, you can’t always know or see everything that is over the horizon, but by developing resilience, an open mind and collaborating with others, you will remove the pressure of worrying about not being able to see beyond what you can see at any given point in time. In turn, it will help to make the whole project journey much smoother, relaxing and rewarding and provide the impetus for you to follow and achieve more of your dreams.