Project obsession

[Wandering Fool]

I'm new here and have searched this topic, but found little.
I've scored INTJ multiple times over many years and I'm really just starting to allow myself to accept the INTJ as a basic description of my tendencies.
Do others here find they need a large project in order to find some solace, contentment in their lives? I've always had a problem with finding myself in a place where everything is basically figured out and it's smooth sailing. For example when a job becomes basically rote for me I lose all interest and suddenly couldn't care less. Without much history I'll say that I've recently taken on the project of buying a sailboat, refitting it and then sailing to Mexico, Central America, the South Pacific and beyond. My whole life revolves around the myriad aspects of preparing to do this, and I think it makes me quite happy. I hope that this is the sort of undertaking that could take me a lifetime to feel comfortable with, afterall, sailing across oceans is something quite dynamic and endlessly challenging due to the scope of it and the external factors that can alter the experience.
I have always 'gotten into' things 100% and then when I feel that I've reached a modicum of accomplishment with it I'm immediately bored. Am I doomed to constantly repeat this and flit from project to project? How does one allow contentment to last?
Thanks.

[Haphazard]

I've done this but I've done this with writing and smaller things like knitting and drawing.

Writing is a terrible one. Flitting from story to story. I need to be writing or else it feels like there's something not quite right about my life. It dominates most of my thoughts, without it there it's like there's such a void that I begin to wonder how it is that other people don't write.

I don't think you're doomed. You just need to learn discipline. or find something that's still exciting about a finished project.

[Wandering Fool]

Thanks for the response Haphazard. I don't think I lack discipline, in fact I think it is one of my great strengths(and sadly weaknesses as well.) I have been able to accomplish some fairly difficult achievements. I think my problem is that if I'm not 'over my head' I feel little motivation. It's almost like I need to try and tackle some major thing that I shouldn't be able to in order to have some peace. Does this make any sense?

[Haphazard]

Thanks for the response Haphazard. I don't think I lack discipline, in fact I think it is one of my great strengths(and sadly weaknesses as well.) I have been able to accomplish some fairly difficult achievements. I think my problem is that if I'm not 'over my head' I feel little motivation. It's almost like I need to try and tackle some major thing that I shouldn't be able to in order to have some peace. Does this make any sense?

Oh, that. The same feeling if I'm not trying to reach a word-count goal in an insane time limit, my writing quality (and speed) tend to suffer terribly.

Have you tried deadlines? The task isn't major, but if you're doing something that should take a month in a week, it becomes major.

[DeadSpace]

heh...testing yourself mayhap? I've done...and still do that...wondering what the limits are, if any. How far adaptibility, ingenuity, personal fortitude can be pushed. Don't know if there's any peace to be found...does seem to get less important. Projects change...can usually know before even starting one whether i'll succeed or not based on past 'tests'.
Peace will probably come when you know enough, have tested enough. To either find limitations...or find that you don't have any. Depending on the project.

[scarlet]

I recognise projects.
Once it was relationships that I threw everything into before growing bored, craving solitude and discarding them.
My business has been absorbing me for the past five years. Being self employed is a key contentment factor.
I'm too sceptical for further academic study, but plan big solo walks to recharge and spend a lot of time alone in the bathroom to escape.
The details of your boat journey would fascinate me.

[Wandering Fool]

Great responses and I suppose ya'll get this a lot, but...
It's overwhelming to find people that seem to 'get it.'

I definitely tried the impossible with relationships, true, when I came to the conclusion that any relationship I'd have would never fully realize my idea of what it should be, I basically quit.
I've had a few of my own businesses which has consumed a great deal of my time, effort, and resourcefulness, but as soon and I would 'get over the hump' and start making it work well and pay off I became bored. It's almost as if I need to be overwhelmed in order to feel alive, otherwise I fall into pretty classic depression.

As far as my boat journey goes, the short of it -
I was in NYC for 9/11, moved back home, started(another) business worked my ass off for four years and started to really grow the thing. Katrina came and erased my efforts. I explored the West US by motorcycle for about a year or so and had decided to ride the thing around the world. However, dependency on gas and the thought of basically riding from gas station to gas station made that endeavor pale. I had the ten year plan to buy a boat and sail the oceans for twenty years so I decided to put my efforts towards a life-long dream rather than to do something that wasn't. I hadn't sailed in about twenty years, so I moved to Seattle after Katrina, sold my house in New Orleans, bought a boat and started getting ready. I plan on single-handing to the Sea of Cortez and sail around for a while, then sail the west coast of Central America and then cross the South Pacific to Australia or New Zealand, and then, well who knows.
I find that preparation of such a journey to be all encompassing, with so many factors, all of which are equally important. Recently I started a relationship with someone that seemingly couldn't have been programmed better for me. She's an accomplished sailor and we made plans for her to come with me. Inevitably though I found that the whole nature of the trip changed in my heart when it became 'easier' because of not doing it solo and we're now 'taking a break.' I too crave to be with someone but when I am with someone I find all I can think of is finding solitude, the type of solitude that one has being alone on a sailboat in the middle of an ocean hundreds or even thousands of miles from another soul.

[Cuivienen]

Do others here find they need a large project in order to find some solace, contentment in their lives?

I think I know just how you feel. As long as I can think, I`ve always been project-driven, I always have short term-plans (things to do within a few days or a week), middle term ones (About a 1 year span, f.e. learning a new language, doing well in the next law-school exams) and long term goals (graduating with very good grades, spending at least a year studying in some foreign country,...).
If I don`t have any project to work on for more than a week I grow restless and easily irritated, then I usually spend a lot of time walking through the fields alone, making new plans for the future.

I find that I am rarely happier than when I feel I have made some strides ín a large-scale project I set myself.

[Zilal]

It's funny, I don't feel like I need a project, yet several other people have insisted that I do. Heh. They will they offer to go in on something with me (usually writing a book). But I don't want to work with anyone else!

When I get a goal in mind I do tend to get blinders on and not see anything but that. But it doesn't necessarily bring me contentment.