The “idea stage” is where too much thinking goes on and not nearly enough “get out and do it.” It’s a common problem and we all have it. We all love to think up great ideas, and then in the next instance, we turn the idea into a goal that we somehow begin to think we can accomplish it.
There is nothing wrong with all of this except for one simple thing — it remains just an idea upon which you never actually work, let alone accomplish. I’m a firm believer in setting goals and for that matter big goals. I like to think my motto is something close to “If you’re going to think big, you might as well think very big.” Think big, but then do something about it. More importantly, do something about it right away. Sure, the idea you’ve come up might be huge and require a long period of time to achieve it, but that does not forgo the need to start working on the idea immediately.
The reason most ideas never turn into anything is people don’t get working on them. Take the idea you’ve been thinking about lately and do something today to move it forward! If you’re challenged by the size of the idea, then start by doing the next best thing and break the idea down into a number of smaller ideas. Then take one of the smaller ideas and start working on it.
In the end, your thinking is not the problem. The problem is in the action (or shall we say, the lack of action). What’s your idea, what’s your goal and what are you doing today to help accomplish it? Get to moving. Your sales motivation depends on it.
Great blog Mark. It is the most basic of paradox. The simpler something is the less likely we are to focus on it and accomplish it. I used to teach seminars on Goal Execution(most people call this Goal Setting and that is half the problem-setting it is then looked at as an accomplishment). In these sessions I would point out the paradox of the language commonly used: “I am working on my goal”… Fill in the blank with whatever the goal is that you want.
The challenge can be in the language we use… our language comes from our beliefs which drive our behavior… our behavior drives our results… hence if you are working on a goal, it will never most likely happen as you do not work on Goals… Goals are the end result of a series of actions…
If you want the goal to become a reality, then you must break the goal into the steps that you must take for it to happen and then work on the steps. This is where I believe 95% of people fail in making a goal happen, they do not define the steps they need to accomplish in order to make the goal realized… and then progressively work on the steps… They lose sight of the steps for the want of the goal…