My story for the last two years has been a succession of chapters written under the influence of inspiration, deadlines, and action.
Here’s how I stopped just talking about my ideas, and found a process to actually start doing something about them.
Have you ever had someone tell you about a great idea they have, but that was the closest the thought ever came to becoming a reality?
Have you had an idea, thought about it, talked about it, and then months or even years later, you looked back and said, well what happened?
Stop thinking, “What if…” – just dream big, set deadlines, and take action.
WHERE DO WE START?
At the end of October 2016, I launched my first digital product. Aside from using Craigslist to post “MOVING…” sale listings, this was my first time using the internet to sell.
I also learned the entire process was much more complex than conducting a transaction. You can’t just put a product out and say, “Here is is!” and expect people to come flooding towards you. Instead, I realized it was part of a much bigger process of building an audience, learning about their pain points, and creating original content to help solve that problem.
What the world saw was the finished product, but writing that first volume of my book was the result of years of teaching, months of live streaming, weeks of learning and building, and hours upon hours of writing. In fact, I’m writing this blogpost in the coffee shop I did most of the writing for that book.
I had to learn how to build the social media channels to connect with others, set up an e-commerce platform to collect payment and deliver the product, start a publishing company to protect my copyrights, the list goes on and on…
All this is to say, I didn’t know the exact steps I’d take before starting, nor am I sure I would have agreed to start if I’d known just how much of a struggle would be involved.
Sometimes it’s better to just put your head down and get to work.
What I Do Now
Looking back, I now know it all starts with a crazy idea. The crazier, the better. I then employed a few strategies that I’ve found work well for me, and just repeat the iterative process to the specific task at hand.
These are strategies that I’ve learned and picked up and various points in my life, but for the first time, I started using all of them at the same time, on the same project.
The result was a steady process for content creation and the fulfillment of transforming my experience and expertise into a format that is shareable and helpful to others.
Here’s how I did it…
Dream big and follow your passion. (1 of 5)
I recently heard a talk where the presenter refuted the idea you find your passion, and then develop the skill. Instead, they argued you develop a skill or discover a talent, and then your passion for it grows. In other words, passion follows from skill.
I thought about this and came up with two examples of how my own experiences supported this idea:
- I started to playing percussion, and found I had a knack for it. For the first time ever, I enjoyed practicing.
- I started teaching, and found breaking complex behaviors into scaffolded steps easy for me to explain to people. I also noticed details and things most people didn’t, and was really curious why some teachers are so much better at teaching than others. I taught everywhere and all the time.
With my most recent projects, I’ve discovered a knack for communicating ideas and what followed was a passion to collaborate, connect, and help others. What’s funny about all this is, I can think of things I’ve accomplished in the last year while in the same, remember a time when I thought those things were likely impossible.
We may be limited in the physical world, but our ideas potentially have no bounds. So…DREAM BIG.
ACTION ITEMS
Write down 10 things that you consider “dreaming big.” It can be related to your professional life, personal life, or creative endeavors, etc.
The first five may come easily, but keep going when you start struggling with the next five. Pushing through the struggle is part of the lesson. Keep a running list, even if it takes you a few days. Don’t give up, get to 10.
Choose 3 that you think will make you the happiest, and come back for the next post to read how I made my “dream big” idea into a reality.
I’d love to hear your top three “dream big’s” or even just one with a comment below.
I’ll be continuing this post as a five part mini-series. When people ask you how you’re doing, or you wish you had more time to <insert what you wish you could be doing, and you find yourself replying with, “Busy!” you’ll want to tune in for the next installment. You can also hit the “follow” button below and receive these posts by email.
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Thanks for reading and I appreciate the sharing – see you guys in the next post.
Huei
HUEI-YUAN PAN 
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