The Real Reason why you can’t find good NFT Projects

First, let’s say the obvious: the NFT space is too loud, even on bear markets. And by “loud” I mean there are so many new NFT projects coming out daily that it’s impossible to be focused on all of them.

Do you feel like you’ve missed out on NFT projects?

Have you ever felt too overwhelmed after overthinking what project out of all to mint in the NFT space and ended up not minting anything?

Has it felt impossible for you at some point to stick to researching only a few projects before mint?

Congrats, anon! You’re probably experiencing: The Paradox of Choice.

The Paradox of Choice

You’re not alone. I’ve been in the NFT space for a good time now and I often find myself thinking “huh? How didn’t I see that project coming even though I spend a lot of my time daily here?” the truth is: no matter how much time you spend, you are just human. You can’t be in 5 places at once. You can’t notice all the thousands of projects that come out weekly.

But… we’re not focusing on that right now. Did you know there's a psychological reason behind choice overload?

When people are confronted with a huge number of options to choose from, they might experience decision fatigue.

In his 1970 book Future Shock, American writer Alvin Toffler came up with the term “choice overload.” The book was about how people were dealing with “too much change in too short a period of time” at the time, and Toffler projected that future generations (that is, us) would face a “paralyzing surfeit” of options.

Choice overload began to get attention as a psychological study topic a few decades later. In the early 2000s, Barry Schwartz began exploring choice overload and published The Paradox of Choice in 2004.

Too many options complicate our decision-making process, according to Psychologist Barry Schwartz, and this has a significant impact on our affective (emotional) experience, lowering our happiness with our decisions and raising the risk that we will regret them.

He claims that having more options makes us less likely to act on things (i.e ending up not minting anything) and less happy with our final decision (i.e Ugh why didn’t I choose that other project instead?). While there isn’t casual evidence for these claims, research has shown that in many circumstances, having more options makes it more difficult to choose; the main reason for that is that it becomes more and more difficult to make an informed decision as the number of options grows.

With so many possibilities, we blame ourselves if we don’t live up to our own expectations, and we frequently regret the paths we didn’t choose (i.e I should’ve invested in the other one, look at all the gains I missed!). Sometimes in particular, if you know a lot about a product, you prefer more choice. If you don’t, and the cost of researching appears to be high, then you prefer less choice.

This happens every day in our lives, like going to a new ice cream shop and not being able to decide quickly what you’d like to have because there are many different options and all of them look appetizing. You may end up choosing chocolate and then think “Why didn’t I choose mint flavor? It looked better” by the time you are heading out of the shop.

In the NFT space, we’re always looking for the next blue chip. The next “it” project. This leads to an overwhelming almost daily decision-making process to pick what project to mint/lookout for. We have the constant fear of missing out on “the one”.

So here’s your reminder to:

1. Take a deep breath
2. ALWAYS do your own research on a project before investing in it. Focus on researching a limited amount (that won’t overwhelm you) of projects a week/month (whenever you’re available), maybe 3, maybe 2, maybe just one.
3. Don’t be too hard on yourself. You can’t notice all the hundreds of projects that come out daily.
4. Take breaks. While I know that NFTs are very fun and entertaining, take care of your mental health and go for a walk, relax your mind.
5. If you’re talented at something, expand your skills and start learning more about it.
6. Don’t lose hope. You never know if you soon will mint the “next one”.

You’re not dumb. You’re just overwhelmed.

Keep going.

I personally love having so many diverse options to choose from in the NFT space since that shows we have a LOT of opportunities and creative and awesome teams building in the space.

NFA

You can connect with me on:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/suppvalen

Sources

1. Schwartz, B. (2009). The paradox of choice: Why more is less. HarperCollins.
2. Chernev, A., Böckenholt, U., & Goodman, J. (2015). Choice overload: A conceptual review and meta-analysis. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 25(2), 333–358. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcps.2014.08.002
3. Schwartz, B. (2005). The paradox of choice [Video]. TED: Ideas worth spreading. https://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_the_paradox_of_choice/up-next?language=en#t-783964
4. Iyengar, S. S., & Lepper, M. R. (2000). When choice is demotivating: Can one desire too much of a good thing? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79(6), 300–322. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511618031.017
5. Why do we have a harder time choosing when we have more options? The Decision Lab. https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/choice-overload-bias
6. The Paradox of Choice. The Decision Lab. https://thedecisionlab.com/reference-guide/economics/the-paradox-of-choice