Have you ever had an idea that you immediately pushed aside because you felt that you weren't good enough to follow through with it?
Perhaps you thought you didn't have the skills necessary to make the idea a reality or you felt that you'd end up producing something that you thought was crap.
Stop.
You're better than that. You're ten times more capable than you think.
Ideas are like seeds. Just as a seed needs water to grow, ideas need confidence to sprout. If you stop watering the idea before it has time to grow (or worse, not water it at all), how will you ever know its potential?
Just as a single seed can become an enormous tree, every idea has the potential to change the world and drop seeds of its own. If you don't even give your ideas a chance, you've condemned them all to failure.
Would you rather give hope to your ideas or condemn them all to failure?
Be confident in your ability to make every idea a reality.
It's OK to stop putting effort towards an idea when you've genuinely recognized that it's not working, but don't give up before you've even started watering it.
We need more people who are confident enough to take their ideas forward. The world needs you to give hope to your ideas and believe in yourself long enough to take at least take the first steps.
You have incredible potential. All those things you believe you're not capable of doing are only true because you tell yourself so.
The next time you have an idea, give it a chance. Water it a little and see what happens.
Good message Raam.
I am guilty of this all the time. Most areas of life and business seem so complicated to excel that it is easy to give up early. Learning guitar, graphic design, PHP or even running a marathon are all the same.
When you see a professional do it you think it looks easy and you want to try to. Then you see exactly how difficult it really is to be good so it seems an impossible task to get to a high level.
However, if you persevere and just keep attacking the goal you often find that it isn’t as complicated as previously thought.
Confidence and effort go a long way towards success in every endeavor.
Hey John, thanks for the comment!
Seeing the professionals make something difficult look easy can definitley be discouraging, but I think if we remember that it took them lots of hard work to get where they are — if we realize that all the hard work and frustration is just part of the process — then we can find our way to a higher level of skill or produce something we’re proud of.
I think the biggest risk when starting anything new is the risk that we’ll give up before making any real progress. If we commit, give ourselves time, and stick it out, the chances that our effort will bear fruit goes up exponentially.
It often seems that the initial obstacle of actually convincing ourselves to pursue an idea proves to be the most challenging step of the process. Once we make that decision, we quickly discover that what we once thought was impossible is really quite achievable. Yet despite the number of times I’ve made this realization, I still find myself unable or unwilling to act upon an idea because of a fear of failure.
And I agree with the comments above, persistence and dedication are much more of a factor than prior experience or actual skill when it comes to turning ideas into reality.
Hey Earl, thanks for the comment!
I think we can expect to fight that “fear of failure” indefinitely — it’s wired into us to be weary of risk and doing things that might fail (like attempting to cross a canyon by walking on air). But the more ideas we go for — the more risks we take and survive — the easier it becomes to act upon future ideas. We have a history to look back at and say to ourselves, “hey, look at everything I’ve already survived and look at what I was able to achieve… let’s see where this next idea can take me!”
It’s like skydiving. Once you’ve done it, many other things — like roller coasters, bungee jumping, etc., — seem trivial in comparison. The initial fear is still there of course, but taking that leap becomes just a little bit easier.
I went with some friends to a nearby river here in India and we dove off a cliff to go swimming. Watching someone jump before me gave me confidence. Add to that the fact that I’ve gone skydiving, and making my first jump in was easy.
The higher your bar has been set in the past, the easier it is to get past anything lower than that. 🙂
I have always been puzzled as to why we shy away from confidence every time ideas pops out of our heads. I guess confidence is something that needs development and I’m glad I have made the choice of taking on the challenge. 🙂
Hi Walter!
I think confidence does indeed need development. Instead of seeing lack of confidence as a limiting factor, we can see it as an area to grow and improve.
If we make a conscious effort to improve our confidence, we will see that we have the potential and ability to make our ideas, goals, and dreams become a reality. But as you said, it’s a matter of making the choice to take on that challenge!
Thank you for the comment! 🙂