You just never know where inspiration will come from.
The inspiration for this week’s article literally came from my office floor.
I’m forever collecting information on creative a job alternatives to having
a job. When the big pile of newspaper clippings, magazine articles, and
handwritten notes on my desk threatened to overtake my keyboard, I started a
pile on the floor.
There’s a gold mine of ideas in that pile. But for
reasons I’m just beginning to understand, I’ve been holding back on sharing
them in this newsletter. Much to my dismay I seem to have fallen into the
same self-defeating pattern I’ve observed in so many clients and workshop
participants. Well ladies and gentleman, it’s time to come clean. Even
someone who is in the idea business like I am is not immune to what I’ve
come to call “idea hoarding.”
One of the reasons I let ideas pile up has to do with
timing. Like a lot of people, I sometimes get caught up in waiting for the
“perfect” time to use an idea. I mean, why waste a perfectly good idea about
how to make money helping singles find true love, I reason, unless I’m going
to weave it into a well-thought out article on the 10 ways to make a living
helping the lovelorn?
The only problem with this logic is that I’m an idea
person first and a writer second. By succumbing to this form of
perfectionism there’s an excellent chance that I’ll never get around to
searching out the other nine ideas leaving my one very cool example to pine
away with the similarly neglected ideas lying in heap on my floor.
Another reason people hoard their best ideas comes down
to the mistaken belief that there are a finite number of ideas out there. If
we use it up, we think, it will be gone. Worse, we worry, that if we put our
idea out into the world that someone might steal it.
I learned a long time ago that unless you plan to bring
a revolutionary new product
to market that no home should be without, or have come up with a way to
personally service the millions of people in your target market, then you
have nothing to worry about. It’s a big world out there folks and there are
plenty of customers – and ideas – to go around.
Another reason we hoard ideas is good old fashioned
procrastination. Having an idea and doing something about that idea are two
entirely different things. Unfortunately for the rest of us, the
consequences of holding back your ideas go far beyond yourself. When you
don’t share your ideas and gifts with the world, other people don’t get the
benefit of your experience, expertise or wisdom. Idea hoarding is the
ultimate form of selfishness.
It’s only taken me 135 issues of this newsletter to
realize that for an idea person like me the thing that jazzes me is the
finding and sharing the idea – not stressing about how to come up with a
tightly written article on a single idea or theme. Looking back to when I
published the original hardcopy version of the Changing Course newsletter,
the column I most enjoyed writing was an idea column called Opportunity
Knocks.
So as part of my coming out as an idea hoarder, I’ve
decided to get back to basics. From now on I’m going to focus far less on
the writing, which doesn’t always come easily to me and as such is far less
enjoyable, and spend far more time on the part I do love – helping people
think outside the job box by turning them on to creative income streams.
From this day forward I am turning over a new leaf and
I’m going to start by getting to the bottom of my idea pile. Every week I’m
going to scoop up whatever items happened to have landed on the top of the
stack and share them with all of you. By mending my idea hoarding ways, I’ll
have returned to what inspired me to start this newsletter to begin with,
and in so doing hope to move you to honor your own ideas with action as
well.
If you need any more inspiration to get your ideas out
into the world be sure to scroll down and read The Nature of Ideas, a poem
by the very talented Rosemary Senjem.
Outside the career box
expert, Valerie Young, abandoned her corporate cubicle to become the Dreamer
in Residence at
ChangingCourse.com
offering resources to help you discover your
life mission and live it. Her career change tips have been cited in
Kiplinger’s, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today Weekend, Woman’s Day, and
elsewhere and on-line at MSN, CareerBuilder, and iVillage.com. An expert on
the Impostor Syndrome, Valerie has spoken on the topic of
How to Feel as Bright and Capable as Everyone Seems to Think You Are
to such diverse organizations as Daimler
Chrysler, Bristol-Meyers Squibb, Harvard, and American Women in Radio and
Television.
live
life on purpose
