When I started this journey, I spent time reflecting on previous attempts at starting my own company and identified some of the things that derailed me from these previous attempts. One of the items I identified was that I switched day jobs which pushed me into new learning and a general drift from side projects to eventually stopping them altogether while I put renewed focus on the day job.Today is my last with my current employer. Unfortunately, I’m not yet in a position to abandon my day job, but the work had become very painful over the last few months for a number of reasons. As much as I wanted to make it work, I realized that I couldn’t mentally go and do the day job and have anything left at the end of the day to work on my Startup. I had to change for my own sanity.

In looking for a new opportunity, I wanted to find something that would give me an opportunity to learn more that would help me on this journey. I’ve learned quite a bit from the job I’m leaving related to product distribution, and wanted to continue learning new things related to startups as that’s where my long term passion is. The company I’m going to is a consulting firm that has a large practice related to developing early stage startups and venture capitalism. While the role I’m moving into is technical/IT in nature, I will have opportunity to dive into the business and really understand how the consultants are working on a day to day basis.

I’ve also thought about what I can do differently to make sure I don’t slide back into that comfort zone where I’m in happy new company honeymoon thinking, “this isn’t bad… I could do this for 20 more years and it’s easier” which is where I’ve ended up in the past. Being aware of this is the first step as this isn’t something I’ve ever thought about leaving past positions. Keeping a conscious effort focused on the tasks needed to progress the Startup is also important. With that in mind, I’ve started setting weekly goals with the other guys and will continue to review progress and set new goals each weekend.

With these things in mind, I’m determined to make this switch while maintaining forward progress on the startup.

What did you reverse your thinking on and how are you dealing with it?