3 Ways to Make Your Ideas Happen
A vision board I made for my small biz Eden & June. Photos grabbed from Pinterest, Instagram and other websites. Credit goes to their respective owners & creators.
It all starts with an idea.
A little pea of possibility in your brain.
And then it grows a little each day—you shape it and bend it and mold it and switch tiny pieces around until it feels right.
Maybe you forget about it for a time. You go on with your life, but the idea’s still there, simmering at the back of your head.
And then you happen to bring it up during a casual family dinner one time and it turns into full-blown business meeting. You’re all excited!
But then comes the action part, and all of a sudden you’re dragging your feet.
Turns out it’s not that easy making your big ideas come to life.
Now all you feel is overwhelmed, discouraged and impatient.
“Why can’t it be easier?!”
You know what, it truly can be. And really, it should be!
Let me teach you three simple steps to get to everyday action ASAP.
1. Keep it small, simple and straight to the point.
I know they say you should dream big, but I believe you have to dream simple first if you want to get anywhere without feeling overwhelmed and overworked—which btw are your two worst enemies throughout this journey.
Simplify your concept. If you want to have a clothing line for example, don’t feel pressured to create a full selection of tops, bottoms, shoes, accessories, etc. right away. You can start with literally one specific item (or service) and get really good at producing and marketing that one thing first before adding more to your list of offerings. You’ll be more rememberable as opposed to being a confusing mishmash of everything, and your operations will be so much easier.
If you like the idea of keeping your business small and simple, you have to read the book Lean Startup by Eric Ries. Too many good insights to mention!
2. Stay playful!
Repeat after me x10 every morning: you don’t need to have everything figured out.
You don’t have to decide now who you are, what you do and how you want to live your life forever. Things aren’t set in stone, and your plans will likely change as you continue to learn and discover more about yourself, the world, and what you’d like to do with your time and resources.
So instead of tying yourself down, allow space for change, growth and lots of experiments. Running a business can be something much more fluid and free and organic. Don't be too rigid about your plans and systems.
If you’re having fun, it’ll emulate in the work you do, and your customers will just feel that and want to support that.
3. Allow your vision to guide your everyday actions.
Cluttered ideas make for cluttered action. So keep your notes and references organized in one place, as one solid vision.
It can be as simple as creating a mood board where you collate pictures and inspirations of things you want to manifest in your business and in your life. When you put effort and care into this, I promise you, it will come alive for you. And it will inspire you to take action everyday.
Let me show you how I do it for my business concepts. I have to admit I go a bit overboard with concept decks complete with color themes, basic branding and copy ideas, but only because this really helps me to organize my fuzzy ideas into more concrete strategies. See a sample of a concept deck I made for Eden & June (a small business I had in 2016-2017) here.
So hey, I want you to know how proud I am of you for being so brave and making your ideas come alive. Getting from 0 to 1 is not easy, but here you are doing so much more than that.
Now, do us all a favor and keep going. And remember––keep it simple, have fun, and stay focused on your vision. ✿