Don’t treat your ideas like caged birds
It can be tempting to treat your ideas like caged birds. They’re pretty to have, but if you set them free, something bad will happen.
“It’s not ready.” “Someone will steal it.” “I’ll get around to it someday.”
What you get is the satisfaction of holding the idea, but none of the benefits of letting it free: Other people will get to see its beauty, and — while free — your idea will grow.
For the month of April, I made a habit out of letting my ideas free: I wrote and published a 500-word article on Medium every day.
I let go of many ideas I had been holding captive for years. I no longer could comfort myself by thinking that one day, when I finally let them free, they would be well-received. Some posts that I thought were really brilliant, actually flopped.
I was full of anxious fear as I approached my keyboard some mornings, with no idea what I would write about, as I had already set so many ideas free. But, they were in there, hiding in the dark corners of their cages. I always managed to come up with something.
The great thing about this habit was that there was always tomorrow. The crippling pressure of having to get it right when I shipped an idea was lifted by the lightness of knowing there would be many more chances. Even if my post from today was no good, I knew that — extending this habit over a period of a month — one or two were bound to be successful. I could let ideas spread by their own merits, rather than spending extra energy pushing them onto the world.
As I moved along, my free ideas grew up and made more ideas. As I look at the progression of posts from that month, I can clearly see how my writing became more crisp and appealing each day.
Interestingly, it wasn’t until directly after my experiment that one of my ideas really caught on. My obligations now relieved, my body cleared of ideas, and my skills sharpened, my brain finally gave itself permission to tell one story it had been holding onto for 7 years.
Nearly 100,000 people have read that story now, and I now write for two of Medium’s most-followed publications. I had two articles in Medium’s top 20, the other day, and even “sat” next to Barack Obama.
If you set your ideas free, you can be sure that some of them will fall flat on their faces, feeble wings flapping in the dust. But if you keep them in their cages, they’ll never have a chance to do that thing that birds do best.
On my podcast, Love Your Work, Laura Roeder explains why it’s so important to be decisive. Subscribe on iTunes.
