It’s a good idea to aim to progress in other dimensions of life throughout the duration building a company.

I've come to believe that while working on a company (in my case Buffer) you should be progressing in other dimensions of your life. Generally, any sort of progress is not linear. Meaning that sometimes you’re seeing significant growth and progress, sometimes you'll be going through a flat patch, and sometimes even declining.

If you only have goals for one dimension or aspect of life, when you're having a hard time in that area you can feel crushed. If you have multiple dimensions of life you're focusing on with clear goals and progress, you can set yourself up to always be winning in some area.

The types of dimensions this could be applied to are those such as friendships, family / relationships, exercise and fitness, investment and financial freedom, hobbies or skills, experiences, mindfulness and self work, etc.

Personally, no matter what the outcome of Buffer, and no matter the phase it is in, I want to have several other dimensions of my life in which I’m progressing. If I approach things in this way, then whichever moment in time I pick, whether 1 year in, 5 years in or 15 years in, I will have progressed in life in terms of my overall goals and dreams.

Alongside trying to make Buffer successful, I also work to become more fit through strength training, I'm trying to become a better parent to my two boys, a better partner to my wife, and I want to progress in hobbies which right now include playing piano, writing and growing my network, and tinkering with code, automation and AI. I’m also trying to build a new cardio habit with running and skiing or mountain biking depending on the season. I've been building Buffer for 15 years now, and I've had a wide variety of hobbies, goals, and self-improvements I've focused on over time.

This approach is in contrast to the "deferred life plan", where you go all-in on your startup and sacrifice everything else, with the hope that one day it will all work out. I see people do this a lot, but it could be potentially devastating if the startup doesn't work out. And regardless of the outcome, startups come with so many lows amongst the highs that it's really worthwhile to have something else that's going well in life on those tough days, weeks or months.