Limiting beliefs and mindsets

Throughout these posts I'm going to mention common beliefs and mindsets that prevent people from pursuing ideas and working on their own projects.

Most of these mindsets, I believe, come from our time in school. During that time It's important we get taught to have confidence in our abilities, to take risks, adopt a learners-mindset, and use curiosity as our learning compass. Instead we get taught to play it safe and go to university. We get taught that a pass is more important than actually learning.

Let's get into the first issue of Convincing Damien!

I don't know where to start

Ironically, I have this exact problem when it comes to this series. I don't know where to start. There are so many ways to kick it off, and so many different topics I could start with. I'm going to explain how to get over this feeling and why it doesn't really matter how you start.

You've probably heard the saying it's not how you start that matters. It's how you finish. And well, it's true. Every person that is exceptional at what they do started as a beginner. Sometimes It's difficult to imagine that, because our idols are so far from where we are right now that they're basically unrecognizable. But you need to remember that they were not born like that - they had to work to get to where they are now.

Everyone starts somewhere.

This is the mindset I use when I think about a new project or initiative I want to take on. I remind myself that everything starts out small. If you're building a website or app, something you can do is take a look at the Wayback Machine captures of YouTube and other massive platforms. Wayback Machine stores an archive of websites from over 10 years ago. This tool should convince you that even the best projects started out as small, unfinished and imperfect compared to what they are now.

There's no need to give yourself excessive pressure before you've even begun.

Related mindsets

I believe the mindset of I don't know where to start, is normally accompanied by other limiting beliefs such as perfectionism **and **lack of self-confidence. It's important to iron these mindsets out at the same time, but we'll debunk these in future issues of this newsletter.

For now, it's important to stop thinking and just do. It's okay if your idea changes over time. It's okay if the first episode/photo/video/edition wasn't perfect. You can tweak your process as you go along. Don't be too strict on your creative process. It's better to just let it happen, observe it, and improve it.

This week in Convincing Damien

I've been getting Damien ready to use Twitter, and made sure he's got a profile picture that he can use across all of his social media accounts.

A while ago I showed him some articles from indiehackers.com and it seems they're starting to get his attention. We've had some quick discussions and I can tell he's contemplating more about what it means to be an indie hacker. This might not seem like a lot of convincing but I think this is the hardest part. Convincing someone to change their mindset, to be more open-minded and naturally curious is a lot harder than convincing someone to create a social media account.

While this wasn't achieved over just one week, I'm quite happy that he's naturally taking more interest into indie hackers.

If this has inspired you to take action, let me know!