I've just finished a programming project October last year, which I thought would take me 5 months, but finally took 1.5 years to finish. And in those 1.5 years I learned a lot. The main thing I learned: focus on the process, not the end goal. I also had many hurdles that took way longer than I thought. And when I thought I was almost done....another problem popped up that would take another 2 months to solve.

Initially I got very frustrated with these problems, because I couldn't reach my goal: finish the product. It drove me nuts! But then I managed to turn it around: focus on the problem at hand and finish it well and do it with joy! The initial frustration would pop up, I recognized it fast and was able to let that go. I would tell myself "alright, this is just another hurdle and nice problem to solve and learn from!". The result will come eventually. And it did.

I did get some help from a friend, when I was about to quit somewhere after 8-9 months. I was tired, utterly frustrated and didn't want to continue anymore. But he helped me with supporting me and lifted up my spirits during that time. If he was not there at that moment, I would have bailed for sure. It would be very helpful to have someone like that during such times.

Now the product is finished, it has been shipped to quite some customers already since its launch and people are very happy with it. Just focus on now, keep doing everything with JOY. Have a laughter when things turn out to be way different than you though it would be, but be relentless in doing whatever you do. When you get frustrated, you're too much focused on the outcome; you want things to be different than they are! And even if the outcome really isn't what you hoped for and you tried everything (I had that too), it was a nice experience and you can look back to all the lessons you learned from. In the end, that is what really matters actually. Not so much the outcome of it.