Thursday, October 19, 2023
Ideas and dreams have stages. First, you’ll experience a stirring. It starts with a hunch. Any creative venture starts that way, from trying a new recipe to moving to a new city. It could be giving yoga a try, or dabbling in poetry. It might be solving huge problems, or simply working towards a degree. All of your initiatives are creative processes that have stages. They could lead you somewhere, but you have to parent them first. Nothing is born fully-formed.
It begins with a hunch, an outline, but it’s fledgling. When you get clarity, it becomes embryonic, yet fragile and delicate. Don’t push, but nurture. Live with your juvenile idea and let it germinate. If you push, you’ll kill it. If you bring it out into the world too soon, the world will gobble it up and kill your dream before it has a chance to gain momentum.
Be a good parent to your dreams and ideas. Keep them safe when they are young. You’ll know when it’s time to bring them into the world. Remember this important truth – ideas begin humbly. Your paternal instincts have to nurture a fledgling idea. It needs incubation, feeding, and nurturing. When they are strong enough, send them out. Your ideas and dreams will begin to expand. When they do, they have the potential to grow beyond you. When they are juvenile, you lead. When they grow beyond you, they lead. That’s what it means to follow your dreams, but first you must learn to see this extraordinary process which starts in you, then expands outward from you. When you expose your creative pursuits to the world, they will attract enemies; but they will be strong because you parented them first. No-one will birth a fully-formed idea. It’s a process that you have to see through from humble beginnings.