"Ideating" - Life Designing Part 3
After empathising with your current life situation and having a clear understanding of your most pressing challenge it is now time to work on possible solutions and on ways how to make things happen. Ways how to move forward.
The emphasis here is on “ways” - plural - not the one, single master plan.
But why should we do this? Why should we dilute our focus and waste our energy on coming up with several ideas instead of putting all our knowledge, experience and creativity into the development of one great idea?
The answer is pretty simple, because the first idea is most likely the one that won't lead us to a truly satisfying result.
Because the first idea is usually the one we create neatly in the realm of “feasible, known and obvious”.
Because the first idea is very likely an idea that someone else has already generated or lived before us and that has proofed to work - for them.
But this is not how Designers work.
Designers don’t throw themselves onto the obvious.
Designers don’t take “feasible” and “known” as their point of reference.
Designers don’t look at what is already out there and try to copy paste.
Designers want to come up with something new.
Designers want to come up with something unique.
Just as Life Designers, who want to create a Life Design that is unique and custom fitted for themselves.
I know, that’s easier said than done.
So how can we do this?
First, by letting go of the limiting belief that there’s only one good solution for every challenge.
The truth is, there are always plenty of solutions for every challenge and the more ideas we generate the greater our chances will be to design something truly unique.
Second, by getting comfortable with the idea that when starting out with this ideating process it’s all about quantity - not quality.
And last but not least, by liberating ourselves from any kind of judgement.
Judgements like: this doesn’t make sense, this is not feasible, this won’t pay my bills, I don’t have the resources for this, I can’t do this, I am not yet ready, what will others think of me!
Sounds familiar to you?
Ever killed the early blossom of what might have been a great idea with these kind of judgemental thoughts?
I did. More than once.
But the beauty about seeing life through the lens of a Designer is that you will get a new chance, again and again.
There are infinite opportunities out there waiting for us and life will serve us new ones every single day and will invite us to take out our sketchbooks and start all new and all fresh. And free of judgement.
So don’t get hung up on what did not work out as you imagined. Don’t get hung up on what opportunities you might have missed.
Don’t get hung up on a paralysing perfectionism that keeps you in the search for this one perfect idea.
And don’t get hung up on this self-created pressure that you have to know, that you have to have it all figured out.
Sometimes really good ideas grow slowly.
Sometimes really good ideas are created by merging several, sometimes random ideas.
Sometimes really good ideas are created when working together with others who have a completely different outlook, background and approach from us.
Sometimes really good ideas are created when we look at our challenge from a new perspective.
Sometimes really good ideas are created just by chance.
Sometimes really good ideas are created when we give ourselves a break from wanting or needing to solve our challenge so desperately and engage, just for a little while, in something else.
And sometimes we just have to trust.
Trust, that all this wonderful, unlimited and unspoiled potential to create amazing ideas and solutions is already part of us.
And that all of us will find our own, very personal way to tap into it.
So for all of you out there stubbornly clinging onto one master plan, for all of you believing that there is just one chance for making things happen or one chance for happiness and for all of you out there that buried their amazing potential under layers and layers of judgement, let me tell you this:
This behaviour doesn't do justice to your true potential.
And this behaviour certainly doesn’t do justice to what life still has in store for you.
*Saiba mais sobre o workshop Life Designing em: http://www.sense-lab.com/life-designing