Posts tagged: commitment

Why am I REALLY doing this?

Ok, now that I’ve had to talk to more and more people about what I’m doing on this trip, I keep feeling unsettled with my ability to explain it. I feel like people are confused by my intentions, and to be honest, I’ve been a little confused myself.

So, I’ve done the work to try to figure myself out, and I think I got it. I went back and read my oldest blog entries as well as just tried to reflect on what I’d regret not accomplishing with this trip.

I think the reason it has been so difficult to explain myself is because I started with an original idea for the trip. Then, as time progressed, I kept seeing byproducts and other things that I would benefit from by going on the trip. As I tried to explain my reasons to others, I kept getting my byproducts mixed in with my main goal or reason, and so it was never very clear. The problem is that I’m excited about the trip for lots of different reasons, but, I’m going on the trip for one main reason.

Now, when I look back at why I’ve had a hard time committing to different things, post-graduation. I think that most of it stems from one main problem: my location. I never really planned on staying in Provo too long after graduation. I had only been there for two years, and I liked it because there are lots of new startups and I’m somewhat acquainted with people in the entrepreneurial community in the Utah Valley. So, I thought it would be a good place to stay. However, I never really saw it as a long term location, so every job that I got I also saw as a short-term gig. That translated into my inability to really love what I was doing.

I might be able to enjoy doing b2b sales, but when I saw that some deals would take 6-8 months to close, I wasn’t even sure if I’d be around long enough to close them. How could I patiently work and put everything into a job when I never really intended to stay there too long? So, as I went from one project to another, I didn’t really analyze and weigh my options, because I never considered any of them to be long-term. That’s not the best phrase of mind when going into a job. Most of the time I went in with the idea that I didn’t know how long I planned on staying, but that I would just wait and see. But, I think deep down I really was never planning on staying in Provo too long.

Part of the reason I didn’t want to stay in Provo is because I’ve had an itching to get out and explore the world while I’m young and single and still capable of having no commitments. I think I was trying to fight that urge some because I felt that I needed to “get on” with my life. So, I was continually having this inner struggle where I was trying to get jobs in a place I didn’t want to stay, and fighting that urge to just go out and see the country.

So, that’s really why I want to go on this trip. I’ve never been anywhere and I feel like I’m really sheltered and have a limited perspective on the world because of my lack of traveling and seeing things. So, I really just want to go on an adventure so that when I do decide to settle somewhere, I’ll be able to do it without this gnawing and restlessness in the back of my mind.

However, there are lots of other things that make me excited about the trip as well. I wanted to hitchhike because it will maximize the amount of different people I interact with. I think there’s a lot to learn from others who have been there, done that, so, I’d like to interact with different people daily. I’d like to learn about careers and what people do so that I might have a better view of where I would excel in a company. I want to have a blog and learn about social media. I want the experience of facing all of my most basic fears and overcoming them. I want to learn entrepreneurial skills. I want the ability to get up and go wherever the wind is blowing.

I think the byproducts that I view as potential for the trip come with my experience with door-to-door sales. While I was out and about, talking to people every day, I gained opportunities and met people that I otherwise would have never met. I got random job offers and learned about the things that people did. However, my purpose was to sell these people so I wasn’t really focused on learning about what they did or learning from them. So, I thought that if I was out and about and had more of a focus to learn about careers and jobs from others, that I’d probably learn a lot. Also, I’ll probably get some opportunities for work or learning that I would never have gained if I wasn’t out and about, talking to people every day.

So, there really are lots of different things I hope to get out of this trip, but they aren’t the reasons I’m going on it. If the only thing I accomplish is having a fun adventure and going places I’ve never been, I will feel fulfilled. So, I’m not going to worry about marketing my blog. I think that has contributed a lot to my confusion. I was trying to create a story that I thought would be more interesting for media and people to follow. In reality, I don’t care. I’m doing this trip for me, not for anybody else. So, sorry if that’s disappointing to anybody, but I’m sure glad that now I know EXACTLY why I’m going this trip.

Bookmark and Share

Tags: , , , , ,

categories Thoughts on Life | Aaron Anderson | datetime December 21, 2009 11:50 am | comments Comments (3)

Commitment Issues

I talked to my little brother Matt today on the phone and he asked me to be his best man. I’m pretty excited about that. I’m not sure why, but I hadn’t even thought about the fact that I would probably be his best man. Anyway, we started talking, and I told him about my plans to be a nomad. It was kind of funny because he sounded SO nervous for me. He didn’t say a whole lot, and I knew that meant he was thinking this in his mind: “Whoa, what’s wrong with Aaron? He’s going A-wall. He’s never going to get married with the path he’s taking. I don’t feel so good about his plans.”

His silence basically came off like the same response that I got from my Mom. Worried that I’m throwing my life away and running away from something. Well, I’d probably think that if I was somebody else. I mean, usually when I hear somebody is doing something kind of different, I am jealous of them. But, I think most of my siblings are just wondering what my long-term plans are. I don’t blame them for worrying, but I just think it’s a waste of their worry muscles. Worrying never does anybody any good.

While I was talking to him though, he brought up kind of a good point about what I’m doing. I was telling him how I just lose interest in things pretty quickly, and it seems like I have an interest in something, but then I lose interest, and I move on to something else. He mentioned how that was kind of like my Dad. That was something that bothered me about my Dad growing up. He would get interested in something, spend a bunch of money on that hobbie, but then it just wouldn’t last. I always thought the use of money on the Hobbie was a waste if you weren’t going to stick with it. Well, I see the same kind of patterns happening in my own life. It’s not even the fact that I lose interest completely, I guess I just get bored and I’m ready to move onto something new.

For example, I remember when I wanted to learn the guitar. So, I got a guitar, I learned a few songs, and then I lost interest. I mean, I still like to play the guitar once in a while, but now that I basically learned it good enough so that I can learn a song whenever I want to, I just don’t enjoy it enough to pull it out every day. See, the question is how that tendency will translate to my professional life. Am I just going to need to switch jobs every year to keep things interesting?

Well, after thinking about it a while, I’ve realized it’s not all that bad. I mean, I have an eye for opportunity. I really think I do. I have a few entrepreneurial friends who just feel like once they get a good enough idea, they’ll be able to start their own company. For me, I feel like I have pretty good ideas fairly regularly. So, for me it’s not about having the idea, it’s about execution of the idea. I love having a new idea and trying to go after it. I could see myself being a serial entrepreneur, but I need to pursue my ideas further, until they are successful. So, this kind of goes back to what I wrote about before: I should never drop something before I am successful at it.

After thinking about all this, I’m wondering if my travel idea is just one more of those ideas that I need to get out of my system so that I can move onto the next one. I wonder if once I get out and I’m on the road traveling around, I lose interest, and I only travel for like 2 weeks before feeling like I’m done doing that. I could see that happening, and I wouldn’t put it past me. That’s why I need to make the decision right now, that whatever I decide to do, I need to stick with it.

If I decide to travel around and have a blog and what-not, I shouldn’t be done with my trip until I have created a successful blog and I’ve seen some of the things that I want to see.

I also wonder if my desire to move has affected my ability to finish some of the ideas I’ve had. If I know that my location isn’t permanent, and that I don’t want to stay in a place for much longer, then it doesn’t make sense for me to start any sort of sustainable business. Like RateMySummerSalesJob.com, I would probably want to stay around in Utah somewhere to make that a success. If when I’m working on that project, I have a feeling that I don’t really want to stay in Utah for much longer, it might be hard to actually push through on the project, because I know it’s something that just won’t last. I think that’s also true about the other jobs that I had. When I worked at Qualtrics, I knew that I would need to be there for at least a year if I wanted to be a successful B2B salesman. Well, I didn’t really want to stick around in Provo long enough to be successful there, so that’s probably what led to me quitting my job.

It seems that my desire to live in a certain place is strongly connected with my ability to see things through to the end. The more I can plan on living someplace long-term, the more I will be able to start businesses that will endure. So, it seems that for me to be able to find a place that I can see myself living long-term for, one of three things needs to happen. First, I get married. Then, I make a decision with somebody else involving where we want to settle down. Second, I just make a conscious decision about where I would like to live for a year or two. Third, I make some sort of long-term commitment in a location where I feel obligated to fulfill my commitment. I guess this would be like a job or something.

Basically, this analysis has helped me to see that I do think it would be beneficial for me to travel, because I think it can help me to make a decision about where I want to live next. Once I have made that decision, I think it will help me buckle down and follow through on the ideas that I have. Besides, if I don’t follow through on this travel idea, it will be perpetuating my bad habit of having a great idea but never following through with it.

Bookmark and Share

Tags: , , , , , , ,

categories Thoughts on Life | Aaron Anderson | datetime October 25, 2009 4:22 am | comments Comments (2)

WordPress Themes