The “Stop” and “Go” Effect of Your Ideas
It seems a bad thing and detrimental to the creative work of the mind if Reason makes too close an examination of the ideas as they come pouring in—at the very gateway, as it were. Looked at in isolation, a thought may seem very trivial or very fantastic; but it may be made important by another thought that comes after it, and, in conjunction with other thoughts that may seem equally absurd, it may turn out to form a most effective link.
–Sigmund Freud
Why are we so quick to kill our thoughts? Why are we afraid to think about things that “don’t make sense” or seem “trivial”? I think it’s because we’ve become so conditioned — especially as business-oriented people — to think about the immediate cause and effect of our thoughts. Something like:
- “This idea won’t work because it won’t bring in X amount of dollars.”
- “This idea is no good because it may upset a few customers.”
- “This idea is just too radical and absurd — it’ll only hurt my company”
- “This idea makes absolutely no sense — there’s no way I’m going to even attempt it!”
- “This idea is so avant-garde that the world isn’t ready for it.”
Banish that thought! You need to learn how to accept all of your ideas. So what if you don’t implement them — you still need to let them flow and properly register in your mind. Let them do some connecting behind the scene. That’s were true creativity is formed.
As Freud states, we shouldn’t try to apply reason to our ideas — we shouldn’t attempt to examine them too closely. Because when you do that, you are disrupting their formation.
From physics we know that the mere act of observing something will change and affect it. For instance, for one to actually see a proton or electron you have to interact with it first. And when you interact with it, you change it’s path and course of action.
I theorize that people are changing the path of their ideas by spending too much time trying to examine and interact with them — trying to make them make sense and apply tangible, real-life outcomes / applications with their ideas.
And when we do that, the idea isn’t allowed to fully form, gain structure, and gain complexity (deep in the mind). It’s like the idea never gets there because we put up our own roadblocks that say: “STOP — BAD IDEA!”
I say no…no…no… to that! Let the ideas. Let ‘em GO! Don’t restrict. Never push them away. No matter how weird and crazy they are, just let ‘em be! Let them marinate. Let them be free. That, my friends, is the true essence of entrepreneurship.
One Comment
danny
August 10th, 2007 at 12:26 am
Interesting blog post! While this is a little off topic, I thought it would be interesting to add. Gavin De Becker wrote about in his book, The Gift of Fear,how when we worry about things and imagine those horrible “what if” scenarios, we are actually tapping into the creative part of our brain. So next time someone tells you they have no creative thoughts, tell them to think again.
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