A couple of weeks back I wrote about a phenomenon I was experiencing called the lizard brain. It was because I was working on launching a new project and as I was getting close, I kept running into fear and distractions.
I eventually defeated the lizard brain or like to think, I just ran faster than the lizard and eventually beat it.
There were three things that helped me stay focused and beat the lizard.
The first was setting a deadline for myself. I told myself I only wanted to invest three weeks of my time to building this project. What this forced me to do was cut things that I felt like was unnecessary and get creative in my solutions.
I focused on things like the copy and the check out flow, instead of worrying insanely on extra UI fluff. I also couldn’t allow myself to get distracted by shiny object syndrome because of my very limited time.
The second was telling others. I told my wife first. She kind of rolled her eyes because she thought the idea was silly. I took it as a challenge cause I wanted to show her even though it’s a silly idea, it might just work. She also didn’t believe I would finish the project so I took that as a challenge too and decided to time lock my time spent on building the project and finish it.
I also shared it with my friends. They were able to give me crucial feedback while I was building. Things like new ideas to try or things in my copy that didn’t make sense. It was also helpful that they would check in with me and see how the progress was going. They were my personal cheerleaders as I was running towards the finish line.
The last thing that I did that helped me beat the lizard was simply to acknowledge that I had reached my deadline and launch it. Whether or not I felt ready. I just pushed go and went to bed.
What was nice was in doing this I was able to step back and think about what I should focus on next and also it helped me to see things I needed to refine. Which was only possible by putting my project out into the world. My friends graciously sponsored my first few days and that helped me figure out some of the post sponsor steps that I didn’t quite see when I was in the pre-launch, building phase.
I hope the next time you find yourself wrestling with the lizard brain that these lessons I learned will help you outrun and defeat it.
Because I was able to outrun the lizard I can proudly share with you my newest project. I’m super stoked because this project is something that I’ll be able to do with my kids. It’s called Sticker Dad Up and it was inspired by my kids and their love for stickers.
For an entire year my kids and I are on a journey to sticker me up with all sorts of neat stickers. What I was building is an opportunity for individuals and businesses to get the word out about their service or products. Through our website Sticker Dad Up, you can help sponsor our project by sponsoring a day out of our year long project and sending us your stickers.
Then on the day that you sponsor my kids and I will creatively reveal your sticker and I will walk around wherever I’m at that day, with your sticker on me. All while sharing the experience on Instagram, our website and newsletter.
