Developing Gut Instinct
When I dream up a new idea, it's perfect. I usually don't even see the 'thing' itself, I see the eventual results it produces -- the smiles and the joy that it brings to the world. And I get excited.
The trouble is, when I start to actually build the 'thing', it usually is very clunky and awkward. Especially to start.
My vision was of something more perfect, more useful, something 'more'.
So I tweak, and I mold, and I polish. Thinking it's not ready yet, it's not perfect yet, but with just a little more work it's going to be great. If I'm not careful, or my ideals are too strong, I'll be stuck in this phase forever. But if I'm too reckless, or my ideals are too weak, my 'vision' will die prematurely.
So how do I know when the time is 'right'? How do I move from idea, to action, to reaction?
The short answer is gut.
Gut strengthened and developed through experience, failure, and success.
If you haven't developed your own good gut for this sort of thing yet, the trick is to error on the reckless side first.
Let it go out into the world clunky, ugly, and awkward.
It won't live up to your dreams or expectations, but the reality is most people won't even notice it anyway (it's only getting harder and harder to get attention in the world). And, the counter intuitive thing is that, just by getting it out there it will help strengthen and develop your gut instincts (and help quiet those internal doubts).
It sounds scary, but the truth is you build, you grow, you evolve through failure. Each time it will move you further down the path for the next time.
And that's the key thing to understand, it's not about being perfect this time...it's about getting closer, getting better, getting smarter each time.
It seems to be human nature that we make things harder than they have to be.
Not because we actually want things to be more difficult, but because our imaginations are often so much more powerful, and perfect, than our reality.
So don't let yourself get too down if you actual work isn't living up to your imagination yet. Just keep dreaming. Keep working. And keep taking that 'next step'.
Put your stuff out there. See how the world reacts...and then just keep getting better!