A Joyous Perspective On Ideas: When your mind is full of them but you are out of time.

It's Friday, and time for another Friday Night Thought Tale Hour with the Hendersons. I've been cursed/blessed with a mind that is always moving. Whenever I hear my Yoga Instructor say, "Find stillness," I wince. It's a painful process for me to do this and one I have to focus on to accomplish. While in a battle with this during the week, a thought came to mind that I wrote down after finishing my assignment of 'finding stillness' (sort of):  

When it comes to ideas, there are basically two kinds of people-



#1) Those who struggle to come up with what seem like good ideas.

#2) Those gifted with a ton of ideas, but who struggle to pick the right idea to pursue within the time they have.

As for me, I come from camp #2. Ideas come to me in waves, and when the waves hit they’re like tsunamis, leaving me feeling anxious AND OVERWHELMED. I don’t like to be stuck. As my dear husband says, I love to ‘get sh%&t done.’ So this means I just go forward in a holding pattern of sorts until the right path hits me. Feeling like I'm going to run out of time... And I considered this week that there really is a method to my mad state of mind in these times. 

I finally realized I have to step back and figure out the healthiest approach to pick the right ideas to pursue. 

And to make a really long story short (a story involving way too much thought, lots of trial and error, journeys to wizards in faraway lands, fighting ogres, and more), here’s what I discovered:

It’s more NOT about a few things than it IS about one thing…

(please don’t skip to the bottom, I’ve worked hard on supporting the case for the following joyous perspective.)

It’s Not Just About What You’re Good at or What You Know. 

When it comes to choosing the best ideas to pursue, some standard advice is to pick what you’re good at or know about. And okay, that’s well-intentioned. However, I’ll bet you’re good at a lot of things. Just like I’m good at a lot of things. For example, I am good at weeding the garden, arguing with customer service agents, and generally accomplishing things no one else wanted to do. I’ll also bet that, like me, you could become knowledgeable about and good at other things if you chose to.

In other words, the problem with this advice is that it encompasses such a wide range of possibilities that it doesn't help you to narrow down your best ideas. And many if not most of your ideas likely fall under the umbrella of things you already know or are good at anyway. So forget that as a way to find your best ideas.

It’s Not Just About What’s Profitable or What Other People Want.

If you’re in business, or you’re working on something that you want other people to desire in any way, these common criteria for choosing your best ideas indeed matter. However, they should always be a secondary part of making your choice. You see if you just decide to pursue ideas that others’ want, but that you personally aren’t fired up about doing, the result is always mediocre at best. Mediocre just leaves you still hungry for more. So skip this method of finding your best ideas.

It’s Not Just About What You’re Passionate About.

It’s also standard advice to pick the ideas you are passionate about.  As though passion is something we Idea People understand... But while this gets closer to the most potent factor, this input can also be too vague to actually help you narrow down to find and pick your best ideas. Because again, like the advice to do what you’re good at, you are likely passionate about many things. And most if not all of the ideas you do have are all related to what you are excited about anyway. It’s kind of like being handed a big platter of different types of chocolate, all of which you love and being told to choose the one you love. Really? Well-intentioned, but not necessarily helpful. So throw complete passion to the wind. Instead, be still and consider...

What REALLY BUGS THE DICKENS OUT OF YOU?

This, I have discovered, is as magic as it gets for both finding and picking the best idea to pursue. As you may be surprised to see, all the best ideas, those with the most internal energy in them to drive you forward to making the ideas a reality, start with this question: What is really bugging you? There are, of course, many different ways to phrase this question that may ring more for you, such as: What would you most love to improve, within yourself or out there in the world? Or, what really (expletive deletive) (expletive deletive) you off?? What just came to your mind? 

Be still for a minute and think about it...

Like me, you might feel like you just opened the 'junk drawer' in your kitchen. And it is a little like sorting out the needless and finding the nuggets that you knew were there, but they just got covered over in clutter.

So Go Ahead. Make a List. Check It Twice.

Consider making a list of the things that really bug you. Don’t worry, it doesn’t have to be a complete list, there’s no such thing. The beauty is that it will never be a perfect list because the world and your brain will happily keep serving up new things to bug you.

Now it helps to get to sorting them into categories. One for your life and behaviors. One for social issues. One for work. One for home. One for any area of life you see fit. Then check it twice. Or three times. Check it to see which of these problems really, really bug you the most. If you have a massive stash of ideas like I do,

match your “Bugs the Hell Out of Me” lists against these ideas. Which most excite your senses? Which ones most make you want to leap out of your chair and do something?

I promise you will not be overwhelmed. Because what really bugs you the most will rise to the top, and it will not be quiet until it is stifled with action. And the response is how we get stuff done. Not a mind full of ideas, but a mind putting them to work. A mind that sees a way to fix what bugs the hell out of it. Because really,

“It’s not about ideas. It’s about making ideas happen.”

 ~Scott Belsky

So tonight, Chris and I will be toasting to taking action with a drink called, “The Great Idea.” Nothing medium about this drink. Here's to never ignoring those things that bug you the most, and remaining open to that great idea that will help you to solve them. Cheers.

Joy's Great Idea Cocktail

1 oz Frangelico® hazelnut liqueur
1 oz apple schnapps
1/2 oz sweet and sour mix

Stir all ingredients together in an old-fashioned glass half-filled with ice cubes (on the rocks), and serve.