Bring your ideas to life…
…bringing yourself to life…
Many moons ago, when I started this business, I, in all innocence, believed that everyone honestly wanted to achieve their goals. I believed that most people were just thwarted by their inability to figure out how they would bring those goals to life, but once they were offered a viable, realistic strategy, well, presto! People would be fearless and would be working like little beavers. *Sighs*
I was younger then, and somewhat more naive, so now I understand that while there are indeed many people who do just require someone else to help them see the big picture, unfortunately, there are many others who have great ideas but, for a variety of reasons*, are unable to midwife their ideas. These people spend so much time sabotaging their own ideas, suffocating them, tearing them apart and just generally breaking my heart.
Listen: ideas are fragile. Ideas are amorphous, malleable, changeable and prone to destruction. Every time you re-think that great idea you had for a play, or a podcast, or an article, or a new job, or how you should ask the cute waitress out, your (potentially amazing) idea dies a little. Kill an idea, through fear, doubt, and neglect, enough times…and what are you left with? Nothing but wreckage, despair and more powerful fears.
Now, consider, for example, the films, or books, or art that changed your life. Consider the films you saw that made you think differently about the world, and yourself. Those films didn’t just happen. People had ideas, and they fought, tooth and nail, to bring those ideas to life. They slaved to bring their vision to the world. ** In their journeys, the creators of these ideas survived countless rejections, and humiliations, failures and frustrations because they had an idea that was bigger than any of that (un)happy horsesh*t.
So if you don’t commit to your idea, whatever it is, with the same passion, if you don’t give your idea(s) the oxygen they need to breathe…how can you possibly expect them to live, and survive and flourish?
I think about this nonsense when I see people on Facebook making, already, their 2015 Resolutions, giving in to the pressure and promise of a new year. Make all the resolutions you want, but we both know that ideas won’t magically spring to life on January 1, 2015, if you’re not committing to the hard work of loving and nurturing them right now. Not sure if your idea is “right,” or “good?” Join the club. Now, stop worrying about what your idea could mean to anyone and ask yourself: why is this idea important to you? Why does it gnaw away at you? (So many people are looking for their passion, their meaning, even as they ignore all evidence of it within them.) This is your idea (i.e. your life), what the hell does it matter what anyone else thinks? You know how many clients share with me ideas that make me shrug….AND SO WHAT? If you’re happy, I’m happy. But if you neglect the ideas within you, like some red-haired step-child, and then wonder why nothing else in your life seems to work out, then yes, that sound you hear is me flaring my nostrils in rage. #ragerising
Want to get started making 2015 the year you make a comeback in your own life? Bueno. Right now, on Hackpad, or in a Google doc, or even in an email to yourself, start writing down your ideas. Put them in black and white. Think about these ideas. Why do they turn you on? Why do they make your feel alive? Start thinking about how you might bring these ideas to life. If you’re not sure, okay, how might you start getting the knowledge necessary to learn what you don’t know? Don’t ask for permission, don’t judge your ideas, don’t immediately decide that this is too hard: THIS IDEA IS YOUR LIFE! (Yes, sorry, I was yelling. Sorry.) Yes, ideas are hard, but they’re also beautiful, inspiring,scary, intimidating and wonderful. And, like most things in this life, the more life you give them, they more they’ll give right back to you.
I want you to bring your ideas to life, because I want you to bring yourself back to life.
*fears, insecurities, learned behavior, miserable childhoods etc., etc.,
** Clearly, I’m speaking here about films like Chinatown or The Godfather, NOT, say, Britney Spears’ Crossroads. Just to be absolutely clear.