Oct 8, 2019

Sometimes, I'm super motivated to do something, like learn a new language. I get excited thinking and daydreaming about all the ways this will benefit me. I'll be able to use it while traveling. I can watch shows and movies without subtitles. I get so caught up in this fantasy I've constructed, that I don't want to put in the hard work to actually accomplish it. It's just easier to enjoy my daydream. Even when I manage to force myself to put in the work, I have trouble really committing. If I run into something that's more difficult than I expected, I'll eagerly throw my hands up in defeat and give up. This happens to me all the time, but I think I've figured out why this happens and more importantly, what steps I can take so this happen less often. I'm Daniel Lam and this is Inner Monkey.

There are a lot of things I'd like to do. A perennial idea that keeps bouncing around in my head, is to make an app. I have tons of ideas! And a couple years ago, I thought, "You know what? I'm gonna do it!" So I set aside time every day and spent months learning how to program. Then, I spent a few more months working on the app itself. But eventually I finished my first app. It wasn't pretty and it was buggy as hell in some places but it worked and it was mine. I did it!

But there was a problem. I was so focused on how to make the app that I had completely ignored the fact that making an app is kinda like running a business. It involves a lot of things beyond just the app itself. If I'm being honest, I ignored all this stuff because it wasn't something I was interested in. I just wanted to build an app and make some money. My inner monkey convinced me that if I built it, the money would come. Spoiler Alert: it didn't.

I was forced to recognize that, in order to make money, I needed a plan. Was I going to put ads in my app? Where would they go? Should I make people pay for my app? How much should I charge? These were questions that I hadn't taken the time to answer, and even these questions were getting way ahead of myself. Very few people were even downloading my app. I needed to get my app in front of more people. Marketing. I hate marketing. It just makes me feel sleazy and manipulative and I didn't want to deal with it, so I didn't.

After awhile, I started to wonder why my app wasn't making money. But this was a stupid question. How could my app make money when I was unwilling to do what was necessary? In order to make money, I needed a compelling reason for people to give me money. In order for people to be compelled to give me money, they had to know my app existed. And I was unwilling to solve anything any of these problems. It should come as a surprise to no one that my first app was a complete and utter disaster, but it was a surprise to me.

It was a surprise because my inner monkey was in denial. When I think about the pros and cons of something, there are some cons my inner monkey has trouble accepting. In my case, it was marketing, sales and all the other “businessy” things. He tried to push these off to one side and hide them in a dark corner. He wanted to get away with just making an app so amazing that the marketing and business would just take care of itself. This, of course, was ridiculous, and I never should've let him get away with hiding it. But because I let him, when I inevitably had to deal with these problems, I was unprepared and caught off guard, even though I should've seen them coming a mile away.

My inner monkey hides things from me because he gets attached to the dreams I've imagined. He knows that if I seriously considered all the aspects of making an app, especially the ones I really dislike, I might decide it's too much work, or that it's just not for me, and this would shatter his dream.

It's tempting to think, "if only I didn't have to learn programming" or "if only my app could market itself". "If only" is a trap. It's one of the ways my inner monkey hides things from me. If I want to make an app, I have to learn how to program, just like I have to find a way to market my app if I want it to make money. These aren't things I can just wish away. But if I get caught up in wishing for things to be easier, I'll give my inner monkey a chance to start hiding things.

If I want my inner monkey to stop hiding things, I need to stop making my fantasies so amazing. When I find myself rehashing how great something will be, I need to lock it down and put a stop to it. I need take in all the facts, the pros and especially the cons. I can't let my inner monkey separate them by wishing away the bad stuff.

Something else I've found useful is getting into the habit of putting things out of his reach. My inner monkey can hide things in the corners of my mind, but if I write it down, he can't touch it. When I'm considering the pros and cons of something, the simple act of writing it down helps a lot. Writing it down not only puts everything front and center, it keeps it there. I can always look back at my list and if my inner monkey has hidden something from me, just seeing it there on my list can help bring it back into the open.

It's hard enough to achieve the goals I want, without my inner monkey making it harder. There will always be unexpected and surprising problems that I'll need to deal with, and I can accept that. But being blindsided by my own inner monkey isn't something I should accept. Not if I want to work towards living the life I want to live.