Ideas
So you have an idea. Something that doesn’t exist, yet you believe there is a demand for and you can see a place for it in the world. You envision the final product in your head, what it will look like, what purpose it will serve and who will use it. You even get some positive feedback from friends about the idea. This could be the next Facebook, you think.
No. It’s completely worthless. It’s just a brainwave, we all have brainwaves. Ideas are easy to come up with, anyone can generate an idea. There is no assertion of energy or planning in an idea. The hard part is executing the idea. This is where the majority of ideas fail, because they are never acted on, they have never started.
What worth can you give to something that doesn’t exist?
Ideas are held in your mind in their absolute perfect state. It hasn’t been acted on, therefore it can’t fail, and since people see it in it’s perfect state, they rarely act on it, out of fear of failing in the attempt of pursuing the idea.
There is nothing new under the sun, your idea has already been thought of countless times before and more than likely, someone followed through and acted on the idea. They acted because they wanted to see the idea flourish, they were willing to sacrifice, devoted time and learned a skill in order to see it through.
If you see yourself as just an ideas person and don’t possess the skills necessary to pursue and execute the idea, then you’re the problem. You need to learn. You need to be willing to learn, at the very least, the skills necessary to build a basic, foundation of your idea. From which, you can judge the difficulties, challenges and problems that the idea may run into down the line if you continue pursuing it.
Your idea has already been acted on before, and held in the same ideal state as you have envisioned. That person ran into problems that forced them to bring it in another direction than what they held in their mind. Which is why you believe it to not exist. But someone has already attempted the idea.
This is where the fear of failing comes from. It’s a scary theme, especially when you are personally and financially invested in executing the idea. When you share your ideas with your close friends and family, given the feedback, you can fall into a false sense of accomplishment from thinking you have thought of an idea that doesn’t exist yet, when in fact, you haven’t done anything, nor acted on the idea.
You’re wasting your time latching onto an idea that you’re never going to act on.
Document the idea, and move on. You may return to it in another season when have the time and are willing to sacrifice for it. Your struggle isn’t with trying to contain and keep your ideas under wraps, because to you, it’s seen in its fullest value, you hold it in the greatest light. It’s yours, you thought of it. But others won’t hold it to the same light as you, it’s not as valuable to them. Others have their own thoughts and ideas that are important to them.
Your struggle is with yourself and actually starting an idea. Dedicating time and learning a new skill that forms the basis of your idea. You’ll come across problems and more than likely it will not appear in the same ideal view that you have in our mind, because people are bad estimators, thing don’t always appear as they seem. But don’t let that turn you off pursuing the idea and executing on it. You will only know by doing. You will always learn something new and be better from the experience.
It’s not about your idea, it’s about your execution. Put in the hard work at the start. Achievers are the ones who acted.
Think about our current times with cool, tech startups being the ‘in-thing’. Their ideas were not original, nor where they the first to start. They were just the ones who executed well and continue to execute well.
If you’re in doubt about starting, just remember, Instagram was built in 8 weeks.
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