6 Steps to Overcome Shiny Object Syndrome and Start Your Business

Your inability to choose will burn you out

Photo by Alex Bertha on Unsplash

Not again. For the second time in a year, I lost my hearing on both sides. My doctor had warned me. “Learn to manage your stress, do less, because one day it will be irreversible.” Not very encouraging.

The previous weeks should have been my warnings. But instead of paying attention to the red lights, I closed my eyes. I only remember the feeling of my head ready to explode. Unable to relax this part of my body, as I failed to make a choice.

Afraid of missing out, I was doing it all.

Being the best mom to my baby, working on my newly launched wine business while working a 9 to 5. Writing on medium and creating a coaching program for women. I couldn’t choose, because I was scared to pursue the wrong idea. But a day only has 24 hours.

One of my former bosses always told me that I couldn’t have it all. That at some point, I had to choose. I always replied that focusing on one topic meant boredom.

Until it meant burnout.

Shiny object syndrome plagues many entrepreneurs. Some people seem to struggle to come up with a single idea to jump on the entrepreneurial bandwagon. Others who already have businesses seem to be at a loss about how to deal with the fireworks of ideas that take over their brains.

And that can be a problem.

Deep inside, I’ve always wanted to prove my boss wrong. Until I figured out he was right the hard way. As I slowly recovered, I sat with myself and thought. There was no way I was going to give up all my plans. But let’s face it: I can’t do everything.

So I came up with a six steps-method I can repeat over time. And I want to share it with you so you don’t have to go through burnout to make your choice.

#1 Pick one business idea from your list

One of the worst problem of anyone starting a business is suffering under the so-called shiny object syndrome (SOS). And not being able to focus. It’s chasing one idea after another without ever finishing one, and especially without really knowing if it’s worth it.

Some people struggle to find an idea, but it seems like any business owner or entrepreneur I know has notebooks filled with ideas to pursue.

Don’t be like a toddler running after every shiny object. Choose one project or idea to develop. Weight down the value of your idea from three different perspectives:

• Are you solving an existing problem?
• Is this problem so painful for your potential customer they’re ready to pay you money for it?
• Can Will you have fun doing it?

Log the rest of your brilliant ideas in a notebook or your favorite note-taking app on your phone. Trust me; you’ll have more and more as you go!

#2 Define what success means to you

You’ve certainly come across books such as “7 habits of highly successful people” or “Outliers: the story of success.” We can debate about the content of each of them (I highly recommend, those are great reads), but my point is: who defines what success means to everyone?

With over 7.6 billion people on this planet, its meaning can only take many colors and shapes. My definition of success might not be yours.

So now that you’ve decided on your idea, a project to pursue, ask yourself these three questions:

1. Why are you doing this project? What does it mean to you?
2. What would it mean to you to succeed? What does this project being successful look like?
3. How will you know that you’ve succeeded? How will you measure it?

#3 Pick a timeline

Congratulations! You’re now one step away from burning out. Now its time to set a timeline.

How long do you want to dedicate exclusively to this project before deciding that another one will be better? Will it be 90 days? Six months? A year? I’d go for a minimum of six months.

This method is handy because, as you’ll see in the next step, you can track your results over a given time and follow a strategy without distraction.

Some people never start because they are too afraid to waste their time on the wrong idea. They forgot that all the learnings they’ll gather during that period of trying are worth more than doing nothing. Because in the end, the time will pass by anyway, so you might better use it doing something than sitting wondering about “what ifs.”

#4 Decide on your goal

Setting goals for your new business adventure is nothing new, but somehow many people do it wrong. They set way too much at the same time.

Do you know what happens when you set too many objectives at the same time? Yes, you bet: frustration, sometimes burnout, and worse, the risk to drop everything.

Let’s say that for the next six months, you’ve decided to launch your coaching business to help women build their self-esteem & self-confidence. You’re starting from scratch with no audience, no clients, nothing.

What could be your first objective to focus on the first 30–90 days of your business? No, it’s not creating your branding, website, or choosing the best fonts. It could be, for example, to grow your Email list to 500 subscribers in 90 days. Or sign your first five clients.

Your objective has to be measurable and serve your definition of success.

If for you, the success of this business trial would be to sign seven new clients, then sure, a website might help, but your objective should be to find these clients. And growing an email list is the goal. Building the website might be a task.

Every 90 days, you’ll set a new objective until your business trial period ends.

#5 Make a contract with yourself to focus only on this goal for the given period

The importance of having one objective is that once set, all the tasks you’ll decide to do every day will relate to that unique objective — nothing else.

When you plan your week every Sunday evening or Monday morning, you’ll ask yourself that one question before adding a to-do to your list:
“Does this task serve my ultimate goal of reaching 500 subscribers in the next 90 days?”.

And if it doesn’t? Then, write the task on your “later-to-do List.”

The primary weakness of any solopreneurs is to want to do it all without a clear plan to follow. You wear many hats, and it’s easy to get lost in everything you have to do. Your strategy and its success depend on the goal/objective you decide to focus on.

#6 Assess & decide on what to do next

Assess your results every 30 to 90 days to keep track of your progress. If you’ve set goals for this period, it’s interesting to track the efficient tasks and those that were not. Because you don’t want to keep doing what doesn’t work.

However, once the business trial period of six months is over, you can decide and answer these three questions:

• Was this trial period a success?
• Is it worth continuing to invest time (and maybe money) in it?
• What tasks were efficient and led you to this success, which tasks did not?

By identifying which tasks to repeat and which to throw away, you’ll be able to keep momentum and grow your “project” into a successful business. I’m not telling you it’s easy, but the structure and the habits you’ve built during that time will make it possible.

Be aware, however, that these tasks may change over time. Things that may have worked at the beginning for your business might not be as efficient as you grow.

But what if your six months didn’t end as planned? What if the end doesn’t match your definition of success? You’re still a winner, darling! Because you’ve gathered tons of learnings along the way, you’ll be able to invest in your (other) future projects.

Your key takeaways

You can deal with the shiny object syndrome with a system.

The fear of missing out when it comes to business ideas is sometimes more significant than the one of missing a party — at least it is for me. The shiny object syndrome is something real, and it can cost you tons of money. But surely, you don’t want to be wasting time in “what ifs” instead of getting to work and start doing something. Anything.

To do so, just follow the structure we saw above:

1. Pick one business idea to start a business trial period. And keep track of the other ideas that come along the way in your favorite note-taking app/notebook.
2. Define what success means to you and how you will measure the success of this business adventure
3. How long will you try? I suggest going for six months to test if a business is worth your time. 90 days is too short. 12 months might be a bit too long.
4. Decide on your first objective for the first 30 to 90 days. And repeat after each cycle. These objectives serve the vision of success you have for this business trial period
5. Focus on that and nothing else. Each task you’ll do will serve that one goal you’ve set for the 30–90 days. If a task doesn’t help you achieve what you want, put it on another list to track it. Repeat for each cycle.
6. Assess what you’ve done and if you met your definition of success. Based on these results, you’ll be able to move on with the next goals or a new business idea.