There’s something tantalising about trying to find inspiration for business ideas. The creative process is not one you can easily force. You need to facilitate the right soil, plant a seed and make sure it gets the proper nutrition in order to grow. But even then, there’s no guarantee you’ll actually generate an idea in line with your expectations.
What you CAN control are the conditions in which your creativity thrives OR thrives not. In the latter case it are our own minds that are causing our self-sabotage. They’re playing tricks on us and making us believe we don’t have the creative nature to come up with great ideas. Only yesterday one of my friends told me: “I really cracked my brain but I couldn’t come up with any other ideas”. It’s not about how MUCH effort you’re making, it’s about HOW you’re making the effort and what’s keeping your mind closed. Those are the mind fucks commonly holding us all back from being actually creative. Check the 5 below and let me know which ones are yours :).
1. You are suffering from imposter syndrome.
Whether you work in a 9 to 5 or already took the leap to entrepreneurship (which is gonna represent 50% of the US workforce by 2020 according to Forbes, just so you know), you will love this phenomenon called “Imposter Syndrome”. It’s the feeling where you believe you’re not entitled to share the expertise you’ve acquired over the years and the misbelief that you’re not actually fit to solve other people’s problems. You have been wasting your time and energy on ideas that you were trained to think are good for you. What you should be doing is stop letting other people get inside your mind and focus on how your own skills can be a true asset for creating ideas.
2. Conventional patterns are limiting your vision.
When brainstorming for a business idea, you stick way too much to sources you already know. The trick is to disrupt this pattern and broaden your horizon instead of walking the beaten path. Think about what inspires you in your personal life, the things you most often talk and read about. We are so used to conventional compartmentalised thinking and not at all to think outside the box. We hold on to stereotypes: I’m a marketeer, I’m a social worker, I’m a legal counsel, I’m a trainer, I’m a coach, blablabla… In the end, these terms don’t really say much about ourselves or the problems we are able to solve for who. The concept of a specific profile is supposed to inspire us about the kind of professional we could be but do not inspire us to think about ALL that we could be. In fact, it does just the opposite. Whereas ideas and innovation happen exactly when multiple passions and backgrounds collide. When you can’t choose or can’t decide the right idea for you, that’s a good a thing. Bind all aspects together and just reinvent yourself.
3. Lack of confidence.
You think your ideas won’t be as good as anyone else’s. Don’t get fooled, anyone who ever came up with a good idea was embarrassed about the tons of bad ones coming before that. Don’t be afraid to fail. Failure is nothing more than finding out what doesn’t work. If you haven’t failed, you haven’t tried hard enough.
4. Thinking your idea needs to be perfect.
You think you need to have it all figured out before you can start. My biggest mindfuck and screw up ever. It took me way too much time to finally find the courage to launch my business, all because I thought “If my idea isn’t perfect, no one‘s gonna buy from me”. Think again. Going to market and engaging with your audience is exactly what you need in order to optimize your idea. It’s the conversation you have and the patterns you detect in your market. They will allow you to finetune your offer. My huge breakthrough happened right when I did a market research about my service in my target audience, and although the results were basically killing my initial idea, they totally inspired me to perfect the concept I’m working with today.
5. Not understanding your full potential and value.
Marie Curie once said, “We must believe that we are gifted for something, and this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained.” In order to create ideas in line with your value, you must understand the natural, useful features that are already present within you. No matter how gifted you are in your expertise, you need to find the inspiration for the foundation of your idea on the traits and skills that make you who you are and turn your potential into the force it can become. Unlock it by understanding yourself in terms of usefulness, how you make a difference and what you can achieve.
Got it? Check. Now let’s hear your thoughts. Share in the comments.
Marielien.