Today’s episode is all about what to do when you’re working on something that you love but you can’t figure out why it just. isn’t. working. First, we’ll talk about what it feels like to love something but not be lit UP by it. Then we’ll talk about what to do about it and how to fix it. And finally, we’ll wrap up with some inspiring examples of how this works in action.

Episode Transcript: 

Hi, everyone, today’s episode is all about what to do when you’re working on something that you absolutely love and you just can’t figure out why it simply isn’t working.

First we’ll talk about what it feels like to love something, but not be lit up by it. So like, how do you recognize that that’s what’s happening. Then we’ll talk about what to do about it and how to fix it. And finally, we’ll wrap up with some inspiring examples of how this works in action.

So first, you know, the feeling, right? Like you have a cool idea for a book or a product or a course, or a service, right, you get the idea. It feels resonant and marketable and it fits with everything else that you’re doing, and you get so excited, right. It’s a good idea, and a good idea after all, can feel like winning the entrepreneurial lottery. So you put in a bunch of time, you organize, you color code, you brainstorm, and then you fizzle. You open up the docs for it, and you just stare blankly into space. You carve out time to work on it, and then you reorganize your client files instead, I don’t know anything about this.

And day after day it somehow just doesn’t move forward. And the more you don’t do it, the more guilty you feel, and the more guilty you feel, the less gets done. This is about when you decide that you were a terrible loser who can’t follow through on anything and all the brilliant ideas you’re destined to finish will actually just language languish in the annals of your hard drive.

And all the while your brain is on a loop going, I love this idea, why am I not doing this? Why do I keep procrastinating? Why am I such a loser? But here’s the answer, because it might just not be big enough.

When the symptom is a general feeling of “meh” towards something that you know will work and legit think is cool, the solution is not always to power through sometimes it’s to level up. Now, quick sidebar, right. We’re not, we aren’t talking about fear of success here, right? That can be a show for another day, nor are we tackling, whether it’s a good idea to begin with.

For today’s conversation, we are assuming that you are brilliant and all of your ideas are good ones. So if you are indeed brilliant and all of your ideas are good ideas, we can also successfully challenge your basic assumption that there are people in the world who are somehow more deserving or interesting than you, and that they are the only ones who are allowed to have really big, great ideas, and we can actually look at the real lesson here instead of paying a bunch of attention to all of that garbage that you know, down deep, is probably crap.

So the real lesson here is that the ebook that you’re working on might actually be better suited for a full-sized book series. That nagging feeling that you should start doing some video, what if it’s actually meant to be a YouTube show? That blog post that your coach keeps telling you to move on, might actually be a prime fodder space for a great podcast.

Here’s a real-life example; I have a client who I’ve worked with for years. In our idea, parking lot, she has a project that we both thought would make a great book. I threw tons of ideas at it, she threw tons of ideas at it, but it just kept staying there in the idea, place, pages and pages of ideas, concepts, brainstorming, piles of incredibly highly marketable lessons that she could build empires on. But zilch in the actual planning realm, let alone any real progress.

She was in the “meh” place because marketability does not equal enthusiasm. Let me repeat that marketability does not equal enthusiasm, just because you can sell it doesn’t mean you can get yourself to do it. Good ideas for someone are not automatically good ideas for you. So instead of nudging her more and more and more and more to get it together and just start, I asked her some questions about other things she had done and had always meant to write about.

And pretty soon a long book about one thing turned into a long book with a bunch of short stories, and our original idea was just one of them. Our new idea allowed her the space to bring all of herself to the table, and that lack of spark immediately felt clear. Our original idea was just too constraining. Once we expanded, she had room to move, explore, and grow, which for someone like her was exactly what she needed.

So next time you feel like you have an idea that feels solid, but just isn’t getting your attention. Don’t automatically scrap it and don’t beat yourself up about it. Try making it bigger instead. Try expanding on it instead of shrinking it.

Thanks for joining me today, I hope you’ll join us for our next episode, and don’t forget to subscribe through our website at thegoodbusiness.co we’re going to be offering all kinds of cool new things, free courses, all kinds of good stuff. If you subscribe there so hope you guys have a great day. Bye.