Jonathan Fields asked a great question on Facebook, and it elicited a response that caught my eye.
“Just curious, if you were just starting tomorrow, would you still seek to build what you’re building now?”
The response that caught my eye was: “THIS is what prevents me starting, the fear of building something I didn’t mean to…”
A lot of Creative Giants have that fear. Either it’s perfectionism (or a near cousin of it) at play, OR it rests upon the belief that there is some future out there that we’re supposed to bring about. As I’ve written recently, we have a tendency toward perfectionism because we want to be safe, but perfectionism actually keeps us from being safe. I’ve also written about there not being some future out there waiting for us – we become who we are and what we are by walking.
But what I’d like to remind us all of today is that sometimes the things we didn’t mean to build are the best things we could’ve built. We won’t see our big hits ahead of time, but the very best thing we can do is keep the music flowing.
So, rather than being afraid of building something you didn’t mean to, work off the idea that you might surprise yourself with, and build something great that you had no idea you could build.
Thanks Charlie, this was really helpful. I as I embark on a new/old project that I started a year ago, left because I was afraid of what I was building was not what I wanted and am now returning to, I realised that I have to start somewhere or continue what I started, rather then think I’m failing because it doesn’t look like what I thought it should. As you say here, it might just be that I build something better, at the very least I’ll probably build myself in the proccess.
You can’t build success on what you might do, but you can totally build your success what you have done. If you haven’t read it yet, you might want to check out Pam’s Body of Work or listen to us talk about it on Episode 1 of the Creative Giant Show.
This is such an important point, Charlie! I talk to a lot of entrepreneurs who want to be as successful as “that guy,” but they don’t realize that it wasn’t a straight line journey and that the opportunity to take the next step doesn’t happen unless you take that first step.
My husband and I have been successfully self-employed for almost 20 years (longer for him, but we’ve been married nearly 20 years ;-}). It’s amazing to try to trace back to see where the big opportunities came from. Most of the time, it was some small,seemingly insignificant decision — or maybe a big decision, like moving to another state — that sometimes seemed like mistakes, but ended up as stepping stones to the next level.
The only thing worse than taking the wrong action, is taking no action!
Boom! Great add, Brenda.
I’m laughing right now, because this is my life in a nutshell. Even though I know the steps I took, it still amazes me that I went from productivity consulting to plotting food revolution!
Wild! And yet so resonant. Good job on co-creating the path, Kirsten! 🙂