Key Ingredients - Discover New Ideas
“It’s not necessarily true that if you can dream it, you can do it; however, it is true that if you can’t dream it, you can’t do it.”
If you’ve been paying attention, you might notice that I often capitalize the word Idea. You probably come across lots of ideas in a day. But a capital ‘I’ Idea is something you genuinely want to experience, create, and achieve in this lifetime.
If we can agree on that definition (at least for the sake of this newsletter), then what is a vision but a collection of Ideas?
Now that you’ve slowed down, gotten curious, and reconnected to your creativity, it’s time to start discovering new Ideas and viewing your life as one ever-evolving and inspiring creative project.
In an interview with Oprah Winfrey, Trevor Noah asked, “When you look at successful people, what would you say is the one common characteristic that gets people where they want to go?”
Oprah’s response was simple, “People get there they want to go because they know where they want to go.”
Regardless of the simplicity of her response, it can be difficult to know what you genuinely want to experience, create, and achieve in this lifetime. There are many things that stand in the way of discovering new Ideas. Here are the three I see most often:
There’s no shortage of opinions.
Be it from parents, leaders, or social media influencers, there’s no shortage of opinions regarding what you should want. In her book What You Want Wants You, Suzanne Eder refers to the things you’ve convinced yourself you should want or should do as desire impostors. According to Eder, desire impostors “arise from false beliefs about who we are, who others are, and what is possible to create in our lives.”
You might be stuck in an outgrown identity.
While a sense of identity can be helpful in terms of embracing your superpowers and reinforcing your core values, it can also become a box that limits learning and possibility. In Atomic Habits, James Clear points out that, “Your current behaviors are simply a reflection of your current identity. What you do now is a mirror image of the type of person you believe that you are (either consciously or subconsciously).” You might struggle to know what you genuinely want because your Ideas challenge your current identity. These identity-shaking Ideas are opportunities to expand how you see yourself.
You might not give yourself the space needed to dream.
In a society that tends to prioritize left-brain characteristics, it's not uncommon for us to jump quickly from dreaming to scheming or to rule out an Idea entirely if the plan is unclear. Please don't be too quick to edit yourself out of a good Idea.
Spend Time Dreaming
In Finding Your Own North Star, Martha Beck writes, “It’s not necessarily true that if you can dream it, you can do it; however, it is true that if you can’t dream it, you can’t do it.”
So, my challenge to you this week is to spend time dreaming.
Discover new Ideas (or rediscover old ones). For now, it doesn’t matter how or when, just focus on what you genuinely want to create, experience, and achieve in this lifetime. This is not the time for editing. Give yourself the time, space, safety, and freedom to dream big, dream thoroughly, and envision your Ideas with all five senses.
BONUS Challenge: See if you can discover 100 Ideas (Not because more is better, but because aiming for 100 will stretch your perception of what’s possible. It’ll challenge you to tune into your values and dream outside of what is standard, normal, or expected.)
