I realized when I decided to restart my coaching business that I had a million ideas. A million brilliant thoughts flowing along with the million other thoughts of what has to be done to build a successful business. The creative and exciting thoughts flowing alongside the somewhat boring, “you-have-to-register-an-LLC ” type of thoughts. So that’s about two million thoughts flowing if you’re keeping count.
Any time you find yourself with a new and exciting idea, it’s typically followed by countless more thoughts on the subject. Your mind gets flooded and then you do nothing. There’s too many pieces to put the thing together and they’re all moving sporadically. It becomes so overwhelming because you realize that you have to begin building a brand by way of websites and social media presence that you’ll initially be creating by yourself because you don’t have the funds to hire staff to do those things. Then you realize you have to start advertising your product and determining the best means to do so without depleting what little start-up money you may have (those five dollar FaceBook ads add up man.) Then once all of these things are in place you wonder what the hell the product actually was that you were selling in the first place. You hear people talking about life coaches with specific niches that are something like, “I help people ages 41.5 through 43.2 years of age seeking to grow greener vegetables in their organic window gardens.” Or maybe something like, “I help busy middle-aged moms manage their carpool routes and schedules…”
Like, what the hell is with the extreme specificity?!
I’m a dreamer and I’ve always gone after my dreams. I want to help other dreamers do the same damn thing. But in most of these coaching circles that’s too vague. They like to compare your business to doctors and ask who makes more money, the generalist or the specialist. But like the examples above, I think people, I know this is shocking, take things too far.
So now you have a mind flooded with thoughts and ideas. You’ve gotten completely sidetracked and pulled off-course with trying to fit your billion ideas into a single someone else’s mold when they barely fit into your own mind. At this point you just kind of throw your hands up, reason that this thing is too difficult with all of it’s moving parts, and walk away.
Unfulfilled.
If you and I could just grab a few of those thoughts, write them down on paper, categorize them along a simple timeline (like, do this, and then this, and then this…), and begin working on the first piece… we will have devoured an elephant. But we did it one bite at a time. And nothing will leave you or I more fulfilled than eating an elephant.
Note to the reader: I do not believe in literally eating elephants.
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