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.
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