Quote: “Turning ideas into reality will demand that we face our fears, which is also an invitation to grow.”
A question from the HeartBased Solopreneur Facebook Group…
“How do I turn my ideas into reality?”
There’s some humor for me here, as I look to turn this question (an idea), into the reality of a newsletter that offers value to people’s lives.
If I were to ask myself, “How am I going to turn an idea into reality?” here are the steps that come to mind that would pertain to turning most ideas into reality.
- Clarify the idea
- What is it?
- What’s the value?
- What’s the outcome?
- Why is this important?
- Start with the end in mind and work backwards
- Visualize the completion of the idea
- Define the big steps needed to get there
- Create a list of baby steps/tasks
- Schedule those baby steps into my daily or weekly life
- Commitment + Focused Attention = Meaningful Progress
- Am I willing to give myself to this idea?
- What do I have to give up for this to be possible?
- Can I turn failures into learning opportunities?
- Am I willing to test the boundaries of my comfort zone?
We Are All Creators
“The artist is not a special kind of person; rather, each person is a special kind of artist.” — Ananda Coomaraswamy
Something that I find fascinating about the human experience is that everything a human being creates (a home, a business, a painting, a… newsletter) first starts as a small idea. The idea grows and inspires us to take the necessary action to bring that idea into our ‘perceived’ reality.
We are, by our very nature, creative beings. We are here to create; we are here to bring our ideas into reality.
However… this process of creation is also a great adventure that invites us to devote ourselves to something that we deem as worthwhile. In every case, this adventure will expose our fears and invite courage. This, of course, is also the process of growth.
Turning ideas into reality will demand that we face our fears, which is also an invitation to grow.
Meaningless Ideas
“Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.” — Thomas Edison
Ideas are a dime a dozen; meaning, everyone has ideas, and it’s easy to think your ideas are somehow special. There’s such a trap here where we overvalue our ideas rather than valuing our capacity to bring those ideas into reality.
What value does a painter have who only thinks about the paintings they want to create? It’s easy to get lost in ALL the infinite ideas about what to paint, while hiding from the opportunity to risk failure and actually paint something.
Hiding behind ideas? Yeah, it’s a real thing. Speaking as someone who spent years doing it; ultimately afraid to commit to something because I feared failure.
10,000 Fears of Failure
“Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.” — Henry Ford
Not to brag, but looking back on my journey, I have failed so many times in small ways and in hugely painful ways; ways that make me want to cry when remembering them.
But, my god, so much has been learned.
From one perspective, I can say… “I’m awful at doing this human thing, and the thing of bringing my ideas into reality.” However, that perspective assumes that I should have succeeded in my 1,000 attempts to bring my ideas into reality.
That was never the point, to win every time or even most of the time. The real point was to learn. Every failure wasn’t really a failure, it was a success in seeing what works and what doesn’t work.
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” — Thomas Edison 💡
What is obvious now, even though I forget it at times, is that I only need to be “successful” 1% of the time, or something like that. Everything that doesn’t work, or fails, is teaching me about something that will work. To find the thing that does work, will require me to find 100 things that don’t work.
As humans, in our adorably confused state, we interpret failure to mean something about our worth and value. We do everything we can to avoid the appearance of failure. We do not face this fear of failure, and we get really, really… really good at making excuses that say it’s not about our fear of failure.
Devotional Commitment
“Without commitment, you cannot have depth in anything.” — Neil Strauss
Personally, I crave DEPTH; I’m willing to bet you do too. Depth in anything, to go deep, requires us to give up many other things, so we can focus on a singular thing.
Sure, we might have a few things we focus on in different areas of our lives, but to experience depth in those areas, requires a very real sacrifice of all the optional distractions we can hide behind.
As it relates to turning an idea into reality, it’s not so much about trying to figure out which idea is the right idea. This can keep you swimming in an infinite sea of ideas, which is only a delay tactic that avoids the risk of failure.
The answer to “which idea is the right idea” is actually quite simple.
What’s the idea that inspires you the most?
Then… go to work. Commit yourself to that idea.
Playfully, you can say… “Okay, I’m going to commit myself to this idea for 30 days.” This allows you to explore it more fully and give your focused attention. Even if you find out that the idea fails, you will still learn so much that will contribute to the next idea you explore.
Commit to being a HeartBased Solopreneur
Gosh, as I write this, I cannot, not, mention SGT, the HeartBased Solopreneur Group Training program. This is precisely the point of why I created it. A container for those who have decided to commit themselves to the path of becoming or growing as a HeartBased Solopreneur.
Not for 30 days, not for a month, but they have decided within themselves…
- “Okay, for the next 12 months, I’m going to commit myself to growing in my ability to show up, move beyond fear, learn, and add value to other people’s lives; so I can receive more value in my own life.”
It inspires me to no end to connect with humans who want to devote themselves to such a path, and do everything I can to help them share their heart with the world and get paid for it in the process.
Why? Because of the value I’ve seen it bring to my life. My goodness, what a gift to be able to share that with someone else.
It doesn’t matter whether you have 5 hours a week or 50 hours a week. What matters is the decision that this is important. With such a decision and devotional commitment, it’s damn near impossible to not make meaningful progress that will add real and genuine value to your life.
Click here to learn more about the program
Final Reflections on turning an idea into reality
Maybe it’s helpful. Here are my reflections on turning this “idea” of a newsletter, into the reality of sharing it.
- I had the idea/question, but I was genuinely clueless about how to answer the question.
- I created a focused space/environment to give myself to the idea/question (my regularly scheduled writing time at a café in the morning).
- I knew that I wanted to write about 1,000 words.
- Rather than trying to tell other people “how to do it,” I looked at my personal experience of doing it.
- I wrote to inspire myself, while knowing my audience is other humans who are interested in the same things I’m interested in.
- The end-result ended up being something entirely different from what I initially thought it might be; which is almost always the case.
- It took me about 2.5 hours to bring this idea into reality (newsletter/blog post), and now it’s something that can add value to other people’s lives for the rest of my life and beyond. That feels wonderful. (I’ve gotten really good at my system for writing, which has been learned through the process of struggling at it.)
- Creating this piece of content has inspired my heart to keep doing the work I do.
