When You’ve Got Millions of Ideas But Little Follow-Through

It’s been many, many months since my last post, so how fitting is it to talk about follow-through. I’ve written this post countless times in my mind, but obviously haven’t committed it to paper. Why? That’s a great question…

I was reading Darren Rowse’s post on what holds bloggers back from making improvements to their blog. He talked about laziness, busyness and fear – some of the things that’ve been stopping him from creating another e-book. He specifically explored his fears:

Fear that it’d flop, fear that nobody would buy it, fear that people would critique me for selling something and not giving it away for free, fear that it wouldn’t be perfect, fear that perhaps I didn’t have it in me to create a product like I wanted….

Sound familiar? How often do we hesitate to do things because we think we’ll fail? Does your perfectionism complicate things further? (Mine does.)

Darren then said that if he didn’t write the ebook, he’d be kicking himself later.

And that’s how I feel about this blog. I’ve been jotting down ideas since September, many, many ideas (but I confess – it hasn’t been millions). I’ve written posts in my head. I’ve written some notes in my composition book (love those). I’ve upgraded the theme and made subtle changes. But still nothing. No new words.

It takes a lot to start a blog today and it can feel overwhelming. The same may be true for you with your projects. So what do you do when you’ve got millions of ideas orbiting your head – you’re dizzy with great ideas – but you don’t commit to them? You don’t let your ideas live and breath.

Here are a few tips from someone who’s on her way to following through:

1. Flex your follow-through muscle. Consider doing something small where you fully follow through. Dividing your project into smaller, doable pieces is a great idea. (And it’s up next.) But when you’re rusty or you’ve become a procrastinating pro, do anything that you can just finish and move on. This not only helps to inspire you and get the productive juices flowing, but it actually reminds you that, yes, you can complete something.

You might try organizing a small cluttered space, writing that thank-you card, finally making that dish you’ve been wanting to. Again, the key is to start something and complete it – whatever it is.

2. Dissect away. A list on following through really wouldn’t be complete without a few words on making a project more manageable. Whatever project you’re working on, dissecting it into smaller steps can take the scariness out of it. When I’m overwhelmed with something, I focus my energy on fear and worry. And that’s not very helpful. It’s clearly unproductive and paralyzing.

Take taxes, for instance (yuck, I know). Make a list of everything you need to get your taxes done. Creating that list really doesn’t take long, and you’ll feel a wave of relief afterward. And you’ll have everything you need in one not-so scary place.

3. Bask in the benefits. Imagine you’re working on that neglected project – how does it feel? Consider the benefits you’ll experience once you get started or finish up your project. You can even commit those benefits to a list, so you’ve got a constant reminder. Mine might look like:

• I’ll feel more accomplished.
• My posts may be helpful, even if to one person (I received a comment on my first-ever post a few days ago, which seriously made my day. The reader was having a rough day but said that my post helped her – how amazing is that!)
• This blog will help me connect with other bloggers and readers.
• I’ll get to practice my writing and my creativity and work on getting better.
• I’ll craft something entirely on my own with my rules and my ideas.
• This blog will (hopefully) showcase my writing style and abilities, and become a good way to promote my skills.
• I’ll learn more in general, and I’ll learn more about myself. About my voice.

4. Exercise. For me, a workout helps to clear my brain. It also has a magical way of squelching my self-doubt. Suddenly, I feel stronger and more powerful. Suddenly, during or after a workout, I’m giving myself a pep talk and saying that I can do anything. While you’ve got that passion to fuel your follow-through, do step one of that project or whatever it is you’re wanting to tackle.

5. Read something motivating. If you can’t give yourself that pep talk right now, think about something that will. What usually spurs you to action? Hopefully, this post will help. But you can turn to anything – a favorite book, a religious or spiritual text, a list of quotes on motivation, or something you wrote yourself (when you’re feeling especially motivated, you can write down some words of wisdom for when you’ll need them most). Or bust out your list of benefits.

6. Just do something. Just do one thing on your list. It can be the easiest or the toughest – up to you. But just start. Take that tax example. Begin by gathering the important papers you might need. Or start by creating a file folder for your tax stuff. Taking small strides helps. Whatever step you decide to tackle, you’re working toward your goal, slowly but surely. Personally, as I’m writing this post, I feel better about my blog already, because it signifies that I’ve made the first step, that I’ve gone over the hump.

Some words of inspiration from Ali Hale of Aliventures (a fantastic blog!):

When you’re struggling to get started, when you’re putting off launching your blog because it’s not quite perfect or you haven’t written enough (you could’ve had Aliventures months sooner if I’d gotten over my resistance that bit quicker – thanks to Charlie Gilkey and Naomi Dunford for the final push…) then just jump in. Focus on the very first step:

• Leave the cookies out of your shopping trolley and buy fruit instead.
• Go for a half-hour walk.
• Write a paragraph. (If that’s too much, just open the document.)
• File one piece of paper.
• Clear one old email.
• Declutter one drawer, or one corner of your desk.

And don’t kid yourself that it’s not worth doing because “it’ll have no real impact”. If you wrote two paragraphs a day, you’d have a book within a couple of years.

7. Test your ideas. Do you get spurts when you’re bursting with ideas? Do they flow out like Niagara Falls? Like a mad scientist, you might scribble these ideas on anything in sight (for me that’s usually a napkin). And then you move on. Just like that. Finding ideas isn’t always easy, but jotting them down is. It’s developing them that’s the difficult part, along with creating a finished product. It’s like we have a million goals. Those aren’t so hard to come up with.  But actually accomplishing your goals takes work.

The trick, with many things in life, is to address one idea at a time. Whenever I’m about to create a post for Weightless (my body image blog on PsychCentral.com), I ask myself a few questions: Am I passionate about this idea? Do I have enough to say to create a meaningful post? Will the idea help my readers?

Sometimes, I just start writing, and then realize that, no, I don’t have enough to say or something is simply missing. So I move on, but save the post. It’s OK to stop and then start again. It helps you practice. Much of this post may be edited, condensed or revised extensively. But I started, and I’m working toward creating a finished product.

8. Ask why. Still stuck? Ask yourself why. Are you too busy? Are you afraid? If so, name that fear. Like Darren, delve into your fears. What scares you? Why? Also, is this something you’re even passionate about? Basically, explore what’s stopping you, so you can identify it and work past it.

What’s stopping you from following through? What do you do when you’re stuck?

{Photo Credit}

Tagged as: ali hale, aliventures, darren rowse, exercise, Follow-Through, muscle, psychcentral.com, Self-doubt, weightless