Falling in love with your idea

For most of us getting new ideas is not something that happens everyday. We immediately tend to cherish our idea and feel protective about it. Some of us go the extra mile and hide their project for months until their idea comes to reality..(true story!)

The context

The grand majority of people doesn’t need to be creative on a daily basis because we have people for that: creatives! Standardised culture and lifestyle means that regular people living a ‘normal’ mainstream life don’t need to adapt things and thus being creative within their environment.

Creatives who are trained to deliver and trash ideas still find it hard sometimes as it creates a lot of uneasy feelings including an ocean of doubts and self-esteem issues.

Poison

Having a new idea makes you feel good, fills you up with energy, drive and self worth.It’s that good that you hold on to it desperately and that’s precisely the trap.

Being addicted to your idea doesn’t help it blossom as it solidifies it prematurely. It turns it into a rock, inert.

Antidote

You can take advantage of your fresh energy to help your idea blossom and escape the solidification process.Three important dynamics can help you create a liquid, malleable idea:

• Being curious about what already exists, about what people are currently making/ thinking, about contexts, people… Anything you can relate back ( even through tortuous paths)
• Connecting to people, your people but foremost people beyond your circle (it’s easier to get honest feedback), build a community of interest around your idea in order to get dynamic feedback streams. I personally think it is the hardest part but what some people bring back to you is quite amazing and worth the effort.
• Re-cooking your idea all the time, according to your new findings, choices and intuitions. Beware of over cooking!

Nota: Managing a fluid idea is challenging as it implies a constant dynamic of change/growth. It can dishearten you at first and you might want to give up, feeling you did everything ‘wrong’. As you go beyond this feeling, you allow things to grow, finally.