Valley of desolation

Imagine you prepared and packed to go on adventure, to then discover the main bridge ahead is broken so you have to take a long way around it. Now imagine the situation and words in your mind while you wander across a large, empty valley similar to a desert or salt flats (as in the picture above).

It’s easy to get lost, either on motivation or purpose.

I’ve been thinking today that the reality for many of us during the last two years has been quite similar, so I decided to write a bit what I’ve done and how I’ve walked what I call the “valley of desolation”.

Early 2020 I registered a startup in USA, big plans and hopes. Weeks, if not days after, the world entered into pandemic mode, it was not only a broken bridge, but as reality unfolded I started to feel so disappointed of how people or society reacted to it that made me question about continuing that path.

On one hand what I had as service was no longer needed with borders closed and travel restrictions etc.

On the other hand, the long term goal or vision of creating “a brighter future for mankind” was falling apart too, because the pandemic highlighted low points of a society that I wanted to impact by “making the world a better place”.

The latest was the hardest thing to swallow. I could have pivoted the initial service, but to me human nature was the heaviest and maybe most personal load I had to face along the way.

As reality forced it, I took this way around: stopped what I had initially in mind, started playing with couple side projects. Stopped the consulting roles and took on a normal 9-5 job to keep things flowing. At the end of last year I switched back to consulting and I started warming up everything to continue with the startup.

It may not sound like anything exciting, as it feels like start again at the same point, however one thing I noticed days ago is that now I can handle multiple things with ease, I have an increased capacity to create/build things and I feel more resilient.

I used to question whether the long extra hours and days would see any fruit, now I have no issue on working that extra mile. Few days ago I set up couple applications that could have me taken a week in just a day!

So even while initially I was about to give up on this adventure I continued pushing the limits, and if that helps you do similar in your personal desolation valleys, these are my guiding stars:

• Never forget why you started
• Never forget who you are
• Never forget where are you heading

“Why you started” should be the first thing you have to keep in mind for any venture or relationship. Forgetting about that your initial motivation or love is gone and that’s recipe for disaster. Write it down, is your personal vision and will be your mountain to climb and the rock to keep you afloat.

The “who you are” is not about being better or more qualified than others, but is about finding what makes you the person that can make a difference or at least genuinely cares about something so it can start a change. It is usually along the process of taking a step at a time when we start to discover who we really are and what is our purpose in life. In a deep sense when we stop focusing our life in ourselves (e.g. making money to buy expensive things) but instead we focus on a higher purpose (e.g. serving others, family time) is when we found ourselves and when we can discover and develop talents that help us along the way.

The “where are you heading” is also easy to forget when we find any comfortable spot. In my case after switching temporarily to a normal job I had a good place at the office, promotion included, certain flexibility and to be honest it was super simple. It would have been easier to continue there, slowly moving up to management and forgetting about everything else, but that was not where I wanted to head in life.

Check your guiding stars then, where do you want to be in life?

Going back two years, I wanted to quit my startup mainly because what I saw in society was affecting me, maybe it was too much at the same time and my mind blamed society for having to stay longer in pandemic mode. But somehow after a while that load disappeared. I guess it was because I continued working on side things and that gave me a positive sense of growth and progress, so that cleared up my mind.

Also couple days ago I noticed this picture from primary school kids, they wrote down what they wanted to be when grown up. It is beautiful because these kids still can dream big regardless of having their camps, trips, birthdays and other social activities cancelled and also enduring months of remote learning. That generation will be more resilient than ours, probably.

I can already tell the future is brighter because of them and I am really excited about what that generation can do in 10+ years, so I plan to be part of that game by then!

Photo by Thom Milkovic on Unsplash