Don’t cling to your ideas.
Set them free like the magnificent beings that they are, or could be, or maybe aren’t.
Don’t sit on your idea and suffocate it until you squish it out of existence.
An idea is a powerful thing, but if you do nothing with it, it is nothing. I think all creative people know this.
I’ve got an idea for a book, they say. Or, I could paint that.
But they don’t. They don’t write the book, or craft the poem, or sit down with their paints.
The idea itself is nothing until you do something with it. And knowing that, I think, actually stops people.
What if I do something with this one powerful idea and nothing comes of it? What then?
And even if you do something with it, there’s no guarantee it will go anywhere.
And so people don’t write the book, or craft the poem, or sit down with their paints. They don’t put the idea into physical form and send it out into the world. They cling to their one idea as if it holds all of their hopes and dreams.
Holding on to your idea keeps it stuck. And it keeps you, the artist, stuck too.
Ideas are like seeds scattered on the ground. You don’t know which one is going to take root. You don’t know which ones will respond to their environment and flourish and become a seedling, which seedlings will survive, which saplings will go on to be trees.
Ideas need to get out of your head and into the world. Talk about them, play with them, water them, feed them. Give them a little sunshine.
Ideas are infinitely malleable and adaptable. Just as a seedling can take hold in the crack of a pavement or in a forest clearing – you simply don’t know how or where your idea is going to survive and thrive. You just have to keep putting them out there.
And trust me – you have more than one idea. The more you put out into the world, the more ideas you’ll generate. I can’t give you the exact equation, but they grow at an impressive rate once you start being fearless and sending them out.
Yes, many of your ideas will fail. But like evolution, they build and build and build on each other and get stronger.
You have more than one magnificent idea. Start work on it today.
Write the book. Craft the poem. Sit down with your paints.
And see where it takes you.
