A Better Way

 by JenniferWhite, President, The JWC Group

Broadcast of 4/8/99

Subject: How To Handle Too Many Ideas

A BETTER WAY
A nationally syndicated column
by Jennifer White
jencoach@successu.comI just hung up the phone with my client Jerry. Every time we have a coaching session, I laugh. We typically spend our time together usually flushing out new ideas and weighing them against Jerry's long-term focus. Just when I think Jerry is headed in the right direction, another idea comes flying in to create chaos and push us off course.

As his coach, it's exhilarating to work with someone with such a powerful gift. You see, Jerry has many, many ideas. But as his coach, it's also challenging to work with him because he has many ideas.

Those of you who have this gift know what I mean. No matter what you do, your head is always full of new ideas. Great ideas. Powerful ideas. Innovative ideas. But having this gift may be the greatest challenge you face in keeping focused on your long-term goals.

Why? Because when you're full of ideas, you feel as if you have to act on each one right now. You start to believe it's now or never. So you find yourself dumping old ideas for new ideas. You find yourself trying to implement everything. You soon realize you've started seven major projects and not one is getting the attention it deserves. Most people fall into the trap of working more hours to get them all done. And you find yourself exhausted, burned out and frustrated.

It's as if you believe your ideas come flowing to you through a big faucet that at any minute could run out of water. That's the real reason you want to follow through on everything. You're afraid you'll never have another great idea ever in your life. Or you're afraid someone will take your idea and become a millionaire from it.

So you try to implement everything. And you're soon overloaded and overwhelmed with all you need to do to implement your ideas.

The truth is you don't trust yourself to keep having more great ideas. It's as simple as that. You're living your life with a scarcity mentality. As if there's only one million-dollar idea in the universe, and you better act on it now.

What you're really lacking is faith.

Faith that you'll have more good ideas. Faith that everything will work out exactly as it's supposed to be. Faith that you will live a powerful, creative, rich life. Faith that the faucet won't turn off, and you'll always have access to any idea you ever wanted.

How do you find that faith? That's a darn good question. I've been struggling with faith for a long time myself. You see, it's hard to have faith when you want to control everything. When you decide you must chase every idea you have, you're trying to control.

When you live your life full of faith, you're open and free. But when you live your life trying to control everything, you're closed and tense. Success is about being free. Which means you have to have faith that the right idea will come to you when you need it.

Faith and control do not work in tandem. To have faith, you must give up control. And giving up control means letting some ideas pass on by. It means giving the idea back to life so it can find a home with someone else.

You must understand that you are a creative person. That's who you are. You can't shut that off, and you can't change it. The ideas will always be there if you give yourself space to listen.

My advice for Jerry? Every week, we look at each idea carefully and only implement the ones that fulfill his long-term vision. Yes, someone will someday have an idea he had, implement it and make a ton of money from it. But so will he. It'll just be with a different idea.

Have faith that the ideas you need will always be there. They will.
Copyright 1999, Jennifer White. All rights reserved. Please do not duplicate this information without written permission.

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