How to Become an Ideas Factory
We have a desire to say something to the world, but we just don’t know what to say. What a strange situation to find ourselves in. We desire verbosity, but we are mute.
Meanwhile, everyone else seems to think up new ideas for blog posts, scripts, films, novels and YouTube channel episodes as if the stuff grows on trees. These guys seem to think stories up with no problem.
So what is it that stops us from having equally great content ideas? I do believe a lot of it is in the mind. We block ourselves or find ourselves blocked, for some reason.
When I’ve experienced this feeling myself, I have found it very depressing, frustrating and demotivating.
But guess what – I’ve just described the reason for the problem. The mental block is made up of exactly those feelings, which become a vicious self-defeating circle.
Because I am down, frustrated and unmotivated, everything I think of seems to suck. This only makes me feel more down, frustrated and unmotivated. Now every idea I have sucks even more. So I… and so on.
Eventually, I would reach the point of despair. A time in my life where I am at a peak of self-loathing. Can one be at a peak of self-loathing? More like a chasm.
Frustration is a self-fulfilling prophecy
When we feel this frustration, we are almost certainly putting ourselves under a huge pressure to perform. But this pressure is the very thing which causes us to fail.
They say some people perform well under pressure. Is that because pressure is like water off a duck’s back to some people? Are their minds set up to be naturally pressure-proof?
When I found myself in this situation, I had unreasonable expectations for my ideas. I had a filter in my mind which would reject anything it didn’t consider genius level. I would have an idea and then immediately ask myself “but is this the greatest idea known to mankind?”
If the filter said “no”, the idea was doomed before I’d pen had touched paper or fingertip a key on my computer keyboard. Talk about putting unrealistic expectations on myself…
Relieve the pressure
This might seem counterintuitive at first, but step one to removing your mental block is to lower your expectations. Once you see how this works, however, you will wonder why on Earth you ever put yourself through so much mental torture before.
It’s easy to assume the great thinkers of the world were spontaneously brilliant. They arrived into the world and from day one they were re-inventing the world. Well, this is mostly down to the fact they went to great lengths to sell this myth about themselves to the world.
So we end up believing brilliant people have some kind of gift we don’t have ourselves. “Trust me, I’m a genius,” their story goes.
But the real truth is, every single great thinker the world has known had to start from humble beginnings. So let’s get humble.
To relieve the pressure then, rather than try to come up with one astounding, Earth-shattering idea. Just come up with a bunch ideas and don’t worry about how good or bad they supposedly are. Write them down quickly into a list, before you have time to start judging.
Deep down, this means letting go of the fear that you are not good enough. The truth is, if you have a mental block, you are stopping yourself from becoming good by putting unreasonable expectations on yourself.
You have time
Everyone, even geniuses, have to start from taking their first step. Those who succeed always start from a position of apparent hopelessness. So what’s the difference between successful, content-creating, folks who seem to be ideas factories?
The difference is they start from nowhere, with no guarantee or outward indication they are special, and keep going. Albert Einstein was famously a mediocre pupil and an underperforming patent clerk. How many of his friends, family and colleagues would have looked at him then and said “that guy is going to change the way we see the universe, science and everything”.
Not one. But he kept going anyway. Perhaps the fact nobody had any expectations of him achieving anything actually helped…
There is a simple rule in life: it takes time to get good at anything.
So: if you don’t give yourself time, then can’t expect to get good at it.
This means you must start off average (or worse). Therefore, your first step to becoming an ideas factory is to be mediocre, for as long as it takes to get better.
When we learn a musical instrument, we wouldn’t realistically expect to be a master of that instrument in a few weeks. And if we’re only practicing for a few hours at the weekend, no human being can become a master of any instrument with that little time to spare.
Practice creates fluency
For some reason, when it comes to other forms of creativity, we often expect to be good sooner. But after beating myself up for years for not being good enough, I realised I’d never given myself the chance to be good.
My expectations were way too high and thus I was doomed to live in a constant cycle of defeat.
I realised I had to be bad before I could be good. And I had to be bad every day, for as long as it took to become good. I allowed myself to have no deadline.
When I was a composer and songwriter, I was often around musicians or aspiring musicians. One thing you notice is how good musicians are bonded to their instrument. They don’t really want to put it down.
Good musicians will practice a phrase or a chord sequence over and over and over and over again. Until you want to scream at them to stop. They have endless patience, working and working until they master some tricky finger movement.
Guess what.
Every creative endeavour – be it a craft, art, design, writing or whatever your thing is – works exactly the same. Even having ideas for what to draw, write or film. Yes, you need to practice having ideas.
Did you ever hear someone when they first pick up an instrument and have to practice the scale of C major? How long did it take them before they could play that simple scale competently?
Then, after practicing a few hours a day for a year or so, they’re a different person. Thing is, no matter how talented you are, practicing every day will improve your skills. Anyone who gives themselves the time to practice something for a few hours every day WILL become more fluent.
Create a routine
To give yourself a chance at becoming a good musician you need to practice every day. Or at least most days of the week. And to become an good ideas factory, you need to do the same.
So, make the time. And make it a routine. Don’t wait for inspiration, be creative to a schedule.
Just spend an hour every day coming up with some bad ideas. Here’s another thing I learned: bad ideas are to good ideas, as seeds are to trees.
So those “bad” ideas you had, by noting them down and thinking about them a bit, you are planting idea seeds. Don’t spend too long on each idea, you have other seeds to plant too.
Any farmer will tell you if you only plant one seed and hope to get rich from it, you are doomed to go bust very soon. You need to plant hundreds of seeds. Then you need to let nature do its magic, with some weeding, watering and fertilizing from you to help.
In the next few weeks, your idea seeds will start to sprout. Little shoots poking up from the soil. But you don’t know yet which of them will wither and die and which will grow more and more until they are giant oaks, fixed to the landscape.
You will only know which are the strong, healthy trees in time. A LOT of time.
Discover your voice
Do musicians have a style when they’re starting out, trying to master the scale of C major? Of course not. They can barely move their fingers to the right place on the instrument, let alone express themselves.
Musicians can only express themselves with music when they have mastered the instrument. At the risk of sounding repetitive, the same goes for your creativity.
To become an ideas factory, your brain is your instrument. So you need to make sure you know how to use your instrument and that your instrument is in good condition.
With daily practice, you will be able to “play your brain” better. You’ll grow to understand how this particular instrument works and how to play it to get the best sound. Your confidence in your ability will grow and you’ll be able to express yourself better.
Because ultimately ideas are a form of self expression.
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