The biggest thing stopping you right now is you.
You thinking “what if…?” fill in with whichever of these is relevant for you:
it doesn’t work
they don’t like it
they don’t like me
it all goes wrong
You thinking “how do I do this?”
You thinking of an idea, and then doing nothing.
People really are creative. We have so many ideas.
The problem is, we keep them safe in our heads, where they can remain amazing, brilliant, crafty, dazzling, erudite, feasible, great…..(yes I was tempted to go through the whole alphabet).
And as long as the ideas are in our heads, untested, then they remain great. There is no proof otherwise! ha!
This is something I have suffered from for a very long time: tonnes of great ideas, all kept locked up in my head.
What a waste.
I changed one thing, and now I try out a lot of my ideas, some fail, and quite a few of them actually work, some with tweaks and revisions, some first time.
I’m happier. I feel clever and smart, and magical.
All because I do something with some of my ideas.
I want you to feel magical too.
I want you to get up to magical shit in the world. The workplace isn’t going to get better by itself. Leadership won’t change until each of us acts on our ideas about how it can be done better.
Stop Procrastinating
I know it’s not easy, but we can make it easier. I’ve been using this reminder, and it’s helped me stop procrastinating and to take action:
“Don’t take yourself too seriously Amber, and give it a go”.
And then I saw this on IG and thought YES! this is it. This is the reminder I need.
To stop procrastinating, and to actually try out one of my ideas, I just need to follow the scientific method:
Fuck Around and Find Out.
Real Life Application
Here’s how I used it this morning.
Last week I asked for feedback on my homepage and heard that I needed to add colour.
I’m not a designer. I’m better with words than with images. I froze. I didn’t know where to start. I had no clue what to do. I’ve been blocked for a week.
Then I looked at the scientific method of Fuck Around and Find Out and I laughed.
I stopped taking myself so seriously. It’s not like I’m Ronaldo with millions of people watching what I’m doing – who’s even going to see my changes? (btw, nice job with the Agua mate, wiping out $4b of a company stock value by moving two bottles of coke? now that’s influence).
I got into the mindset of give it a go by saying to myself “let’s try stuff out and see what happens”.
Scientific method in action
Observation: we need some more colour
Experiment: add colour to the background, play about a bit.
Get a peer review (asked my friend Steph)
Conclusions: looks bolder. Grabs attention. Doesn’t look like a toddler attacked it with crayons. Ok, lets leave that there for a few days and review again later.
Pick one idea that’s in your head right now. Now go fuck around and find out how to make it work.
This is part of my Thought Piece Series where I explore topics related to leadership and provide both answers and questions. My intention is to start meaningful conversations that help us move forward. Want to connect? Click here