Every single day, we do a countless multitude of things. Some tiny, little tasks we forget about moments after completing them, while others can be life changing events.
The question we all wonder at one point or another is, why do we do this? Honestly, think for a moment why you do most tasks. The most common response is simply “because I like to do this.” Blogging, for me, for example, is something I do for the fun of it. I like to try to express my thoughts via this method, versus other forms. It generally is just fun to do, so, I enjoy it.
The thing is, that really doesn’t seem to be enough. People eventually get bored doing something simply because they want to. In everything they do, want to have some feedback; some kind of validation for their efforts. This could be anything from active feedback, (someone commenting my blog, for example) to some passive indication of their work being noticed (hit counters going up, for example).
These are good reasons to keep up the effort, sure, but those results still don’t answer the question of why you go through the effort. Most, if not all bloggers, to continue the example, didn’t start with an established audience; we had to build one up over time, generating content to meet their expectations after we had already started. The question becomes, then, what are your own personal expectations?
What did you want to see yourself do? What do you hope to accomplish in the long term? These questions can be applied to most anything in life, and while, as stated before, external feedback is very helpful, and sometimes the end goal of anything we do, deep down, we need to have a feeling that we are happy with our own efforts in life. It doesn’t matter if the whole world likes what you have done, if you are not personally happy with it, then the effort is wasted on the person impacted by it most: you!
Take a moment and think about why you do some things. Think for yourself in the work you do. Are you happy doing it? Then continue. If not? Try to find a way to enjoy it again. You only started this project because you liked it to begin with, right?