How To Go On Once You've Started

The importance of continuing and finishing things

A couple of weeks ago I wrote an essay on how to start doing something new ( 5 Tips to Start Doing Something New ) because at that point I realised how important it is not just to have the courage to start something but also the skill to go right about it and not deflate by the end of day one.

But the more I thought about that essay, the more something pressed on me — the realisation that starting something the right way is not enough, people need to know how to keep going.

The concept seems to be quite straightforward: you’ve started, you are enjoying it — so you keep going, but equipped with my work experience I know better than to assume it is. As a teacher I have been watching my students struggle to keep up good work, to pursue and enjoy their progress no matter how fun or how useful what they are learning is.

I am a philologist and a teacher apart from my other pursuits and have been teaching English, German and French (along with literature and culture) for ten years now, have finished multiple courses for teachers, taken part in a variety of workshops and seminars all along designing my own teaching methodology, which is above all based on individual approach (I know it sounds quite like an umbrella term but I don’t want to make this essay heavier by expanding on my teaching methods, I might do a separate essay on it one day), which is to say — I know a lot about the struggles of learning and continuing to do what you’ve started.

In this essay I’m going to share most common reasons why people struggle or even fail to continue doing what they’ve started and then provide tips for how to deal with it all.

Starting something new is always exciting, it provides us with the initial drive to dive into something unknown that is a little scary but in a good way and brimming with promise to change our life — or at least a part of it — forever.

A swirl of “what ifs” starts flooding our mind: what if I learn to paint so well I will become an artist and make a living doing art in the attic flat in Paris? what if I learn a new language get offered a job and will move to a different country? what if I learn to play guitar so well a local band is going to discover me and together we will become world-famous and filthy rich?

There are of course more modest what ifs as well: what if this helps me change my job? what if I learn how to vlog and become big on YouTube and won’t have to work in an office another day? what if that girl sees me doing a 360 Barspin on my BMX bike and falls in love with me?

It is so easy to dream what your life is going to be once you master a new skill, while you are still blissfully unaware of the hours and effort you will have to put in to achieve that.

Which is the first reason why people fail to continue:

Not Assessing How Much Time and Effort It Takes to Learn a Skill to Some Level

Humans are very impatient by nature, they want the result here and now and often feel disappointed if they haven’t learned much after a first month or two. The first mistake we make is thinking “I’ve been doing this for a month” which can’t be further from the truth because in reality we have been doing it for less than two days if we count the hours.

The time it takes to learn a skill is always counted in hours. You can look up online a rough estimation of how many hours it takes to learn some skill to a particular lever.

Tip: create a progress chart where you will note down how many hours are needed to reach the first level — always work up to your goal in small chunks, never to the final point, otherwise it is going to be so overwhelming you’re bound to quit.

If you want to learn French to C1 level, make sure to first find out how many hours A1 is going to take. If you want to learn to play guitar like a pro, discover how long it takes to learn the basic chords, etc.

On that chart mark not only the number of hours you’ve put in but also how much progress you’ve made. Have you learned your first 100 words? Cand you tell about yourself and things you like without looking things up? Can you play first chord flawlessly?

Which brings me to the nest reason why people fail to continue:

Not noticing your progress

This is the biggest disservice you can do yourself while learning something new because it makes you feel stuck, like no matter what you do, how hard or how long you work you’re not getting anywhere. Nothing will make you want to quit more than that!

Tip: If you have a teacher or someone to help you on your journey it’s going to be easier because they will tell you what you’ve learned and what a good job you’ve done. If they don’t, ask them to. Tell them that it’s important to you to trace your progress so that every time you’ve managed to climb a new high it would be great if they told you. Or ask them questions. What have I learned to do so far? What mistakes I no longer make?

If you are learning on your own, it’s going to be a little harder, you will need to make sure to trace your progress yourself. The chart from the previous tip will help you with that.

Comparing Yourself to Others

If you do that, even tracing your success isn’t gonna do the trick. What does it matter that you can talk to a stranger in French for five minutes, tell them about yourself, your country, your culture, things you like, discuss the latest movie and ask them questions about those things if someone else can do the same without as many mistakes and also discuss modernist art after studying half the time you have?

Don’t ever think this way! I know it’s going to sound trivial but — everyone is different. People have different capacities, different experience, different mindset and it all matters. I have been teaching for ten years and cat tell you for sure that after the same class people succeed in very different ways. And it does not necessarily mean that one has learnt something and another one hasn’t but that people remember different things. One student will remember most new words, another one will build correct sentences with new structures, and yet another one will surprise everyone with a flawless pronunciation.

Besides good starters aren’t always as good at continuing: the person who has flied through first main guitar chords might get stuck at barre.

Tip: Except for the obvious one of not comparing yourself to other people — if that doesn’t help and you keep doing that anyway, try reverse comparison: spot what you have learned to do better than them (in the skill in question). This kind of balancing out is bound to show you how individual everyone’s progress is.

Not Knowing Why You are Doing It in the First Place

Knowing why you are learning something is the ground for your motivation. “It seems kind of cool” will not see you safely through the learning process until the end. You need to understand why you are doing it especially during those dark hours when you don’t see the point to go on and are inches away from quitting.

Tip: Make sure you know why you want to learn this skill at the very beginning and that your reasoning is strong enough to make you hold on to the process.

How to know if it’s strong enough?

Let’s say you are learning something to push your career forward. Ask yourself a couple of questions. Will this particular skill help you with that for sure? How soon do you expect to move up in your carrier? Is this time sufficient to learn the skill up to the level needed? Is this career move what you really need? Do research to answer those questions you aren’t sure you can on your own.

If you want to learn this for your self-development, self-enjoyment make sure to know whether you plan to practise this skill on a regular basis, because learning to play guitar just for the sake of knowing you can is not motivation enough. Besides I believe the point in this case is to make life more fun by spiking up your leisure. It would be equally good to know that you aren’t going to stop doing that in a long run. Because skills have a tendency to deteriorate if not practised.

Pushing Through Burnout

Especially if you’ve set a goal to learn something during a particular stretch of time you are in danger to push yourself to continue even when you feel you can’t. You are fed up with the activity, learning process doesn’t bring you any fun anymore but you get up / sit down every day to do it.

The hazard is you are going to snap and quit just out of exhaustion without much chance of coming back to the activity because by that time even the thought of it will disgust you. I know what I’m saying — I’m never coming back to the gym again.

Tip: set realistic goals. Assess the time on your hands, how taxing your other activities are and see how much time and energy you can afford to spend on learning this skill.

Surely we can’t plan everything and at times in life there are periods when everything overwhelms us. Step aside, take a break for a couple of days or weeks if need be. Take a breath, take care of yourself and return to the activity when you are ready, and I promise it will be fun again.

I realise that some of the insights given here might seem obvious, and they are once they’ve been laid out in front of you, but in the time of difficulty even the easiest things are challenging to locate and even more so to navigate.

I hope my tips will help you out of a difficult situation and make it easier to continue doing what you’ve started if you enjoy it.

Disclaimer! If none of the above helps make sure not to continue doing something that doesn’t bring you joy — quitting is also an option just check that it’s not the result of a rush decision. And also consider consulting a therapist, some reasons for your struggle run deeper than we think.

If you have tried any of the above or have your own ways of continuing with something you have started, please share in the comments. Also do so if you have any questions — I will be more than glad to answer them.