7 Strategies for Getting in Your Own Way :)
So you had an idea. It happened. It was big and it’s hanging around. It pops up in the shower or on your commute to work. This isn’t just an idea for redecorating the living room. This is an idea that might change things. It might stir the pot. It might improve people’s lives. It might right some wrongs. It might cure some injustices. It might just make the world a better place.
But, let’s face it, it’s going to take a lot of work. You can see that from here. A hell of a lot of work. It might make you uncomfortable. It might be exhausting. It might turn your hair gray. It might change where you live. It might change YOUR life. Yikes! It’s so beautiful as an idea. It’s dreamy like a romcom lead. It’s a crowd pleaser at a cocktail party. It makes you smart. It makes you clever. Why can’t it just stay an idea? Why does it have to nag and push and pull? It’s so nice as an idea.
At the Mira Fellowship we’ve been supporting people just like you with big ideas for world-shaking change and we’ve learned a thing or two. It’s a hard path and maybe, just maybe, it’s better to avoid it all together. It can turn your life upside down. It can make you do things you’d rather avoid. The satisfaction of putting your own imagination into the world is small in comparison to reworking your daily routine. That’s why we’re building a knowledge resource for those with big ideas who are worried it might not be the right time, they might not be the right person, or they might not know enough to get it all done. We want to help preserve life as it is. We’ve worked with big ideas for climate, industrial waste, and the judicial system. We’ve worked with big ideas for financial literacy, community engagement, and education. We’ve worked with lots and lots of big ideas and have reverse engineered a few secrets that will help you keep your life simple and free from world-change. These posts are for you. The key is to learn how to get in your own way.
How to Get in Your Own Way
Our goal here is to give you industry leading tips and tricks that will help you avoid changing the world. It’s a difficult and messy business. Best to leave it to the people who have been doing it for years and years. They know what they’re doing. They built the problems that plague us today. They are probably best equipped to solve them… right? You should focus on pleasing your boss and getting through the next season of your favorite show. We’re here for you. With these tips and tricks you’ll be able to avoid the allure of making a difference. The siren song of self-fulfillment will be silenced, or at least kept at bay. This is a resource, a gift, to the rest of us to insure that we don’t chase our foolish dreams and ruin this one beautiful life we’ve been given.
That Darn First Step
The most critical moment of any great idea is the first step. Without the first step the other steps are impossible. Just as giving birth to a teenager is impossible, so is creating world change without the first step. As Lao Tzu is credited with saying, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” So we’ve known this for a while. If you can successfully avoid the first step you won’t have to fend off all the subsequent steps. By focusing on the first step we reduce the problem to a single point of failure. Just don’t take the first step. Then you’re home free. Your idea will never come to fruition. It’s that simple. Alas, like all sage advice, it’s easy to say and much more difficult to enact. The pull of possibility is often unrelenting. Our imaginations want to be expressed.
This is why we’ve created 7 simple strategies to help keep that first step on the distant horizon.
1) Keep it Big and Vague.
This is absolutely critical to getting in your own way. The more you can do to keep your vision big and vague the harder it will be to tackle. Each time you think of it there will be a tinge of overwhelm that encourages you to turn away and return to whatever you were doing before. Imagine if someone asked you to get to the moon by yourself. Likely, you wouldn’t know where to start. Just imagining all the steps would be difficult. How far is the moon? How much fuel does one need to get to the moon? How do you get back? Would it take a year? Ten years? One hundred years? You’re working with trial and error. The key here is to keep your mind in a fearful, wondering state. If you’re trying to solve the whole problem at once, it will seem impossible and you can easily dismiss the whole potential journey. If the process is broken into smaller, simpler goals, those goals might begin to feel possible. That’s when all hell breaks loose and you’re sliding down that slippery slope of meaningful work. So, at all costs, keep your idea big and vague and you’ll likely sidestep the dangers of taking that first step.
2) Huge Expectations
This may sound like keeping it big and vague, but it’s not. Big and Vague is about making sure the process remains overwhelming. This is about your own expectations for the results. Huge Expectations is about making sure nothing ever feels like progress. If you keep your own expectations large enough the first step will pale in comparison. Even if you were to accidentally take a first step, you could immediately compare it to your expectation of greatness and the progress made by that tiny step will be reduced back to zero. The key here is to keep your expectations through the roof. This will preserve the magnificence of your idea and your own positive image of yourself. The higher the expectations the more difficult it will be to get the ball rolling. Think of your expectations as friction on a sloped surface. If you have low expectations, a hardwood floor, the ball will start rolling quickly, but if your expectations are high, say a deep deep carpet, then nothing can move. This is the optimal state for getting in your own way. The higher your expectations, the less you’ll be able to see any progress, and the more likely you’ll give up and return to bingeing that show.
BONUS TIP: Some who have perfected this technique refer to themselves as perfectionists. The perfectionist cleverly ties their own sense of self to these sky high expectations, essentially doubling the potential failure. If something doesn’t work as planned, not only was the idea faulty, the very person who had it might be faulty to the core. The perfectionist is a painful, but clever, operational choice for those looking to really get in their own way. It’s certainly not for the faint of heart, but if you’re committed it’s a bold and frequently successful path.
3) Eschew Structure
For those unable to turn their dreams into giant overwhelming cumulus clouds, a lack of structure can be a lifesaver. When your idea keeps tugging at you, daring you to take the first step, we’ve found making the process as haphazard as possible will often do the trick. Focus on your idea in small bursts at surprising times. It doesn’t matter when, just that you remove any consistency. If you develop a routine it becomes possible to see progress. Once you see progress, the pull of the idea will become stronger and stronger. This can be dangerous and should be avoided at all costs. We’ve found that doing your best to deprioritize your idea works wonders. If something else comes up it should be attended to as quickly as possible, preferably to “make room” for working on your idea. Here we’re using the same fundamentals as procrastination, but it’s a structural approach.
The moment you prioritize your idea, disaster can strike. You want to make your nascent idea earn its keep. Imagine your idea is a houseplant. If you feed that plant and put it in sunlight, it’s going to begin to think it’s a priority in your life. It’s going to grow. It’s going to blossom. It’s going to stretch out and begin to enjoy living. The key is to put your idea at the bottom of your list. Put it below cleaning out that kitchen drawer with all the odds and ends. If it’s there you’ll likely never get to it. Or when you do you’ll be exhausted. This strategy will allow you to entertain an idea that has taken over your mind without letting it drag you down the path of world change. It’s always there, and it might even feel honored to be on the list, but since you never get to it — it never ruins your life!
4) Keep it to Yourself
This is a real gem of a tip. It works at almost any stage in the process. We’ve found that including others in your process creates a ton of momentum. Telling other people about your vision or your goals can lead to encouragement and accountability. Both of these can destroy your life and lead to world change. But, luckily, there’s a solution — simply zip it. Just don’t tell people what you’re up to. This pairs nicely with the high bar of perfectionism or the lack of structure. By simply not including others in your process you become the sole arbiter of success and failure. One helpful mantra is simply to say, “Not yet,” over and over in your head like a Buddhist monk. It may sound overly simplistic, but it’s shockingly powerful. Many ideas hope to make the world better, not just for you, but for other people too. If you never include these people then you’ll never see the glimmer of success. If you tell someone your vision and their eyes light up, it becomes nearly impossible to put that toothpaste back in the tube. One or two true supporters can carry you over hundreds of doubters and you’ll find yourself deep in the jungle, miles past step one.
The more you can build up your fear of others judging you and your idea, the easier it becomes to stay silent. It’s a virtuous cycle. Best selling psychology author Lisa Damour says that when a teen (she focuses on teens) doesn’t try the thing they’re scared of, they give themselves a data point of failure. If you share and receive a response, it could surprise you. But if you stay silent, if you avoid including others, you insure the response is negative (or at least their imaginary response is!). Not sharing is just like receiving negative feedback without risking the possibility of encouragement. Pretty cool.
5) Bite Off More Than You Can Chew
If you make your tasks too small they will feel doable. You might do them just for the joy of checking them off your list. This will inevitably build momentum and could take you off the cliff more quickly than you can imagine. Small tasks are like sneaker waves at the beach. Just when you least expect it they will pull you away from shore and the rip current will keep you out there so long you just might change the world. So the key here is to keep the tasks big. Imagine a single to-do that reads, “remodel house,” not order the sink or call the electrician. Yes, this is a lot like tip one, but in order to be a valid blogging list there must be seven items. So I’ve taken the first item and split it into another item. But don’t do this with your ideas. Never break them down. You’ll run the risk of creating bite-sized tasks. Keep it big. Keep it overwhelming. This lets you believe that only special people are truly capable of creating change. Only a genius could handle such an unwieldy thing. They must be able to think in ways I can’t even comprehend. “Dan and Liz just remodeled their house.” OMG overwhelming. That’s the space you want to stay in. If you break things down into small tasks I can’t help you anymore. You just might change the world. It’s best to never feel the little successes of completing a morsel and feeling that spark of pride. Avoid it. Keep it big.
6) Visualize Failure
This takes a truly powerful imagination but if you can do it successfully, you’ll never need to worry about being bitten by the disease of a big idea. I won’t labor this point. Suffice to say, you simply stop and imagine everything that could go wrong from this moment forward. If it comes too easily to you, I suggest imagining multiple paths forward. What if no one likes it? What if no one understands? What if it doesn’t work? Each of these paths should have their own subsets of failure. A well trained mind can ward off the temptation of big ideas by simply focusing on the possible failures in as much detail as possible.
BONUS TIP: It’s likely you have a friend who is good at this. We all do. Don’t tell them the specifics of your idea, stay within strategy 4, but tell them something big and general, a clever use of tip 1, and see if they can drum up some failure points. I bet they can.
7) Never Celebrate
To round out our list to the proper seven items we have… celebration! Celebration of any success, no matter how big or small can have calamitous effects. A celebration will often involve other humans. The simple collective good vibes of a positive gathering could be enough to shock an idea into existence. If something more formal is added, say a speech or an acknowledgement of achievement, the resulting goodwill could last for weeks. You’ll likely wake up miles into the jungle and realize you’re in over your head. You might realize you’re enjoying yourself. You might even realize you’re making a difference.
The celebration is an unfortunate trojan horse of the big idea. You don’t see its destructive effects until it is usually far too late. If you find yourself on the cusp of a celebration, run! A reformed alcoholic shouldn’t hang out in a bar. The celebration of an idea is the same. Only the very very strongest among us can celebrate and still get in their own way. If you or someone encouraging your ideas suggests a celebration please, for the love of God, say no. You have a life to live. There are things from Amazon to order. Don’t let a candle in a cupcake fool you. Don’t let a smile and a pat on the back sway you. The celebration is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It is not to be trusted. Please look out for yourself. A little celebration can pop up out of nowhere.
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There you have it. I hope this helps. Big ideas are like a weed patch. It’s easy to pull out a little sprout by the root but if you let it grow, it will take over. It will consume your entire garden. Once those roots are set it’s impossible to return to the life you once knew. Nip it in the bud. You must be vigilant. You must never let your guard down. These big ideas can swoop in in an instant of weakness and change the course of your life. Stay strong. Stay committed. And stay exactly where you are.
Psssst… For those of you who still can’t resist. For those whose ideas keep them up at night. For those who have taken the first step and find themselves deep in the jungle of world-change, call us. We’re here. If you’ve caught the fever and want to spend your life in the wilds, we’re ready for you. Apply to the Mira Fellowship and let’s change the world together. :)
Mira Fellowship — Director of Story