At this point, I’ve written over 15 blog posts which I’m still a little shocked happened. If you’ve read any of them you know each and everyone of them is AMAZING! They are smart and well written. They are filled to the brim with insight after insight. I know you are hanging on my every word waiting with anticipation to find out what will come next. RIGHT… (said oozing with sarcasm in case it was missed.)
Okay, I know this is not the case, except maybe for my Mom and Dad. (I love you, both, and I appreciate you reading these!) I’m not some prophetic scholar whose every word is gold. I’m just a guy who has some things to say and wanted to write them down. I am proud of my work thus far but know this is only the beginning and I have a long way to go.
When I started this blog I decided to make a list of topics I thought were interesting. Some were easy to write about while others would take a little research. It’s a pretty hearty list and I try to add to it whenever I get a chance. The problem I’m noticing is every time I look at the list I start to freeze up. I look at the list and I get writer’s block.
Then something happens. I hear Seth Godin in my head saying there’s no such thing as writer’s block and I find a way.
“No such thing as writer’s block? That’s crazy talk, Joe. I’ve experienced it before and it’s real.” Sure, there are times when it feels like I have nothing write about because my mind is blank. I think we’ve all been there. What Seth means is fear and the resistance are kicking in preventing us from moving forward. We can’t come up with any “good ideas” and we aren’t sure what should be written.
This is a problem I’ve had for a long time. I only want to come up with good ideas because no one wants the bad ones. The problem is I’m forced into an all or nothing scenario. It’s either perfection or failure. I can’t have bad ideas or people with think I’m dumb. If I’m dumb I’ll be mocked. If I’m mocked I won’t have any self-esteem, and on, and on, and on, forever. This line of think has conditioned us to either have something smart to say or nothing at all.
I’m sure you’ve heard people say, “There are no bad ideas.” Though we could go back and forth debating the merits of this statement, I believe it’s true, there are no bad ideas. The reason being, it’s the bad ideas which lead to the good ones. Rome wasn’t built in a day and good ideas don’t come out of thin air. By coming up with idea after idea the valuable ones will rise to the top.
On the flip side, an idea might sound bad to one person but could be a good idea to another. “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure” sort of deal. Maybe it’s difficult to execute and with the right person it becomes valuable. Maybe the idea isn’t “good” because it’s incomplete and needs to be develop.
I have a post like that right now. I’ve rewritten it twice now and it’s still not there yet. The idea isn’t bad, it’s just incomplete.
The thing is ideas aren’t inherently good or bad. They’re only ideas. Their designation is in the “eye of the beholder.” This is what I think about now when I write. I give myself permission to suck, to have bad ideas, and to move on with the post. I embrace the bad ideas. As Seth told Tim Ferriss in his latest podcast, he’s written over 7400 blog posts (he writes one every day) and he’s only had a handful of great ones. If a prolific writer and thinker like Seth Godin can have that many “bad ideas” why can’t I?
Be okay with the suck. Be okay with bad ideas. Remember it’s the fastest way to the good ones.
