Projects Will Keep You Alive

You need projects to keep you alive, and that’s no exaggeration. So, what’s a project? A project is anything that needs to be done by your involvement, by your doing. A project puts you in action to accomplish. It can be a short-term project like taking the garbage out, or a long-term project like writing a book, or something in between, like taking a trip. Projects keep your mind going and get you thinking about your future. It focuses on helping others. A project is what makes the world go round.

If you focus on short-term projects, then you will need lots of them, for they get done quickly, and then you will have to find more of them. You can have a dozen or more short-term projects in a day, and that’s OK. To do them, it is best to put them on a list of no more than 10 items and cross them off as they are completed. That allows you to add another project, but no more than 10 active projects at a time. You rarely can finish 10 projects in a day.

Daydreaming about doing a project is not a project. If you want to lose weight and do nothing about it, that’s not a project. If you want to be more physically fit by running, walking, swimming or biking, and you do nothing about it except think about it, that’s not a project – that’s a fantasy! If you just wish you could, or if you talk about doing something in the future, or if you wish you could do what you used to do, then it’s just a dream, it’s just talk and talk is cheap.

Long-term projects should require multiple completion points for success. For weight loss, pick several weight levels to reach and celebrate each of them when you achieve them. You can call each weight level a project completed and then move on. Breaking a project up into intermediate levels is always a good idea, for it means multiple celebrations, and reduces the time to achieve success. If you do not get to finish a long-term project, you can often be satisfied for having completed part of it since long-term projects are often difficult to finish.

There are projects for yourself, but the most satisfying projects are those done for others. Helping another person is always satisfying, especially when that person needs your help. Doing a project for the community is important and, in general, the more people affected by your involvement in a project, the more satisfying it can be. Projects for the Jewish community, like serving on a board, or providing help for a group, are projects that reward you and the group you are working for. If you are depressed, go help someone and it will lessen your negative feelings.

If you’re retired, then projects will keep you useful and alive for yourself and for others. Doing work for charities is extremely valuable if you have the time or the money, but even if you see that others do what you have in mind and you are part of the process in some way, then it’s an important project for you.

Some projects fail, but I have learned more from failures than from success. Failures train the mind and the body to avoid failing in the future, and that’s important because it helps make success happen in the future.

Some projects create much worry. Too much worry about a project is not a good project. You have to know your worry level, and if your worry level is too high, then either avoid the project, or find others to help you with it. Some worry is good, but you have to know your limit. With too much worry, projects tend to fail.

Too many projects is not a good thing. Many projects produce worry and worry leads to failure, and failure leads to self-criticism. You may think you are just not good enough. Projects should be satisfying with a good chance of finishing them. You don’t want to take on a project that you know you cannot do, or if there is no plan in advance on how to succeed.

For any project, you want to feel good about doing it. Any project, however big or small, should make you feel that you are helping to make the world a little better because you were here.