Many students restart their projects in this course. I find doing so productive and effective.

Usually it results from students learning important things about themselves. Or rather unlearning things, like that they were pursuing dreams they thought they should have, that were popular, or other forms of adopting other people’s values without questioning them that ultimately didn’t resonate with their values.

Other times it results from learning things about their field, or, again, unlearning things, like that they liked the field because of its prestige but didn’t like its culture. Only by working in the new area could they learn what they like or dislike about it. I consider it better to find out you don’t like something you dreamed about than always to dream without learning the details, risking regret. Learning that the fantasy doesn’t match your expectations frees you to pursue a dream that does. There is no shortage of projects you can create that will fill you with joy, satisfaction, and emotional reward.

In your case, if I read you right, it sounds like your view of entrepreneurship is maturing — that it’s more nuanced than you expected and you want more experience starting projects in a more modest context (where you don’t have to start a company from scratch, worry about making payroll, file with the state, etc), and still get experience identifying a problem, conceiving of and iterating a solution, and leading the project.

People usually can’t tell what hurdles they have before doing the process of these exercises. It often takes facing the challenges of starting a project to learn about yourself and your field. Many people live their whole lives never learning these things.

In every case of someone redoing these exercises I’ve seen, because of their experience doing them once, the student does them

• faster
• more thoroughly
• with more enjoyment
• further

It looks like you plan to redo the process step by step in a week. That’s aggressive, but doable for a second time. After that second time, I expect you’ll be able to do the process automatically when you spot potential new projects, opportunities to advance, opportunities to lead, etc.

For now, I look forward to your taking on the challenge and seeing the results.

Lastly, I’m glad you switched in this reflection from saying “I was possibly reaching too high for my first go at entrepreneurship” to “I can always come back to my current project to apply what I’ve learned.”

That perspective reminded me of another student who redid the exercises. Her first project was to serve a group in her home country, which was halfway around the world. She wouldn’t be back there full-time for a few years and couldn’t work effectively on the project from New York. So she started a new, related project in New York, which she saw as her first step in working on her long-term project back home.