You can have an idea, but not yet the skill or know how to do it. And therefore, it might even seem strange at times to others what you are trying to say because you yourself are still in the process of trying to understand its meaning. You can, quite easily, have an idea but be nowhere near capable yet of its accomplishment. And, as obvious as that seems, it can seem at times bizarre to others. But it can’t be any other way. You can’t do what you want to do until you have developed the ability to do it.
That’s obvious.
Who wants to come up with ideas that require less effort than their current level ability can solve? You aren’t going to change much if you set your sights on less, lower, or easier things. So we have these ideas, at first. And these ideas may arise long before any work in relation to it is capable of being started. Because once you have an idea, you then have to lift yourself up to the level of that idea.
Quite possible is it then that you have an idea that’s 10-years away from your skill level. And that’s a point that a lot of people seem to miss. Many don’t understand that part, nor realize that a decade is a theme for being able to produce great work. Go and look for any greats who achieved theirs any sooner and let me know who they are if you find them. I’d love to use them in my material as examples of being wrong if you can.
How or why anyone would put themselves through the possibility of nothing, financially speaking, in return for all that effort is the general population consensus. But again, even that completely misses the point.
Doing work on the expectation that money is on its way may lead to disappointment. So you have to want to become a researcher for the love of what the work feels like and the rewards experienced that deep immersion brings. Let’s face it, nobody walked into the gym today in the expectation that the staff will reward them with a cash sum at the end for their physical efforts expended. So why is it then you would expect anything in return for doing something else you enjoy? Not all enjoyable activities pay you to enjoy them.
So that shouldn’t stop you from still wanting to do them. For how the physical discipline of exercise makes you feel, and the lasting benefits it brings for days ahead, the clarity of thought, thinking and increased levels of energy. It’s the same with mental discipline. Yes, you are doing the work because you want to make something. But the ‘feeling’ you derive from it is the most important element.
The idea you start out with might not necessarily be what you end up with. But in order to arrive anywhere, you have to start somewhere. And in the pursuit of the idea you initially had, that’s going to change and morph and evolve. And each time in doing so you attain a higher level in consciousness, shifting your mind away from what it was onto what else it can be: something new or different again.
And this keeps the process fresh and exciting as you gain more knowledge and experience. Something else is discovered which you wouldn’t have come to realize if you hadn’t the initial idea to start. Ideas aren’t enough. But there is no way you can get anywhere without an idea. If you wanna run a marathon, then you’ve got to follow a strict plan. You’ve got to do months of training sessions in order to prepare ‘being ready’. So it’s also a mentality thing too. Increasing in physical discipline also increases mental discipline. It works both ways. Each process feeds itself into the other. The better you get at one, the more you continue to improve at the other.
As you continue, keep pushing the distance, and finish lane, further away from you. This principle applies when it comes to your ideas. You can only come up with ideas to your current level ability of where you are. So your best idea is always going to change under this mindset again, if you continue to push yourself to change.
The premise is you want to keep making this idea more complex, and continue to research more, always making the goal posts wider than before. The idea is to try and get you up to a higher level and every time you approach that line, push the goal further away from you again. The more you get into and stay in that habit, always trying to make it more distant, you become higher than you were before. Make the challenge difficult, striving for complexity, continuously doing this as a habit will allow you to discover things you would have otherwise never noticed before.
But it all starts with that idea. Then constantly making things harder, on purpose.
People always want to see the results now. But what if what you’re thinking you can’t fully express or articulate for 10-years? In that case, what’s hurrying going to solve? Nothing.
Look at how many great works are already finished and are now just lying around living on shelves. They’re going nowhere after they’re complete. When the work is done, that’s it done forever. So you want to make sure what you are making is something that has the potential to live forever.
The fastest way to kill great art is by trying to rush it through a process in a hastily manner. That lack of discipline will show in the results. Therefore, if you have any sort of inclination, that even though the idea is something you think is good, but you also feel it can still be better, best following that inclination. Who wants to put out something mediocre? So having the idea is necessary but making an idea to last is not an overnight thing. It’s certainly much better than not having any ideas at all. So play the long game of constantly thinking of more and more new ways of turning and trying first. Over time, your ideas will mutate and evolve, then begin to take on a life of their own. More patterns will emerge. Do this for long enough, and a decade is a respectable amount of time you should give to a significant problem, and you will see generations of these ideas continuously grow and become better than they were before.
And how much better even more so it is when you finally arrive with what you thought was your best idea, then it pushes you onto a different path and into a completely different field, not only a whole new way of seeing the problem, but an entirely new problem with an increased level of insight that you’ve never seen before.
Therefore the key is not to think that anything in the past as waste. It took all that time working towards the solution, even when it didn’t work out, or felt like it’s just not working, or something that once made sense no longer does. Or even what didn’t make sense, starts to make a lot of sense. That’s an amazing realization.
You haven’t wasted anything. That’s now time gained and experienced from the process. Time saved for next time. If you didn’t have that already behind you then you wouldn’t have what’s in front of you. Because you’ve invested that significant time on the way while being wrong. You can’t just have a moment when everything feels right and it all falls in the right place. There has to be that significant investment of time, mental energy and perhaps a lot of failure, working your way through that process.
So don’t be so sure of yourself, even when you feel so sure of yourself. Not an easy skill to acquire as many choose to believe that they just already know, or know enough. When really, you only know as much as you currently do. And you have the potential to be a lot better than you currently are. Being able to step back and move away from your own work is critical, as you’re probably the worst judge of it in that moment when you’re still so excited from it. And being personally attached to it will make you feel detached if it doesn’t go well. Or worse in that case, make you resent the work when it was merely a lack of patience that’s the problem.
And as you continue this course, by choosing to focus deeply on learning itself as the goal, over the course of a decade, your best idea will continue to outgrow itself as you continue to outgrow yourself. That’s why it’s important not to rush out with anything. Once it’s out there, it’s out there, forever. There is no need to finish quickly. Nobody is waiting for you. This race is against yourself. To see how much you can learn. To see how much you can become. And you want it to be something you can come back to again and again and say each year that there isn’t anything missed, or you could have done better, if you believe there’s room for improvement.
And I’m not talking about waiting for perfection, or not taking action at all. It’s okay to play with ideas, but do not commit to anything until you feel sure. If you can see progress by iteration, fixate on incremental improvements. Narrow your focus but let the idea grow organically. You have to let this natural cycle of evolution take place.
Have you really sourced through every possibility to make that the one and only? If the answer is no, then you still have a lot of work to do. But if the answer is yes, then now may be a good time to start thinking about making the second version of it.
The rewards for being extremely disciplined brings a higher quality experience to the mind. So as a rule of thumb: 10-years of hard work is a general baseline you should expect before becoming close to being so good they can’t ignore you. This process is not a switch. However after 10-years of being engaged with it, continuously seeking new ways to push your boundary, sparks will ignite and something will flick a different way. And sometimes, you might even just have to wait 10-years before coming full circle and realising what it was you were trying to mean.
“From Rusticus… I learned to read carefully and not be satisfied with a rough understanding of the whole, and not agree too quickly with those who have a lot to say about something.
– MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS 1.7.3.
All of us are born unique. This uniqueness is marked genetically in our DNA. We are a one-time phenomenon in the universe-our exact genetic makeup has never occurred before nor will it ever be repeated. For all of us, this uniqueness first expresses itself in childhood through certain primal inclinations. They are forces within us that come from a deeper place than conscious words can express. They draw us to certain experiences and away from others. As these forces move us here or there, they influence the development of our minds in very particular ways. Let us state it in the following way: At your birth a seed is planted. That seed is your uniqueness. It wants to grow, transform itself, and flower to its full potential. It has a natural, assertive energy to it. Your Life’s Task is to bring that seed to flower, to express your uniqueness through your work. You have a destiny to fulfill. The stronger you feel and maintain it—as a force, a voice, or in whatever form-the greater your chance for fulfilling this Life’s Task and achieving mastery. The month of January is all about discovering and developing your Life’s Task, your purpose, what you were put here to do.
– ROBERT GREENE, THE DAILY LAWS.
DISCOVERING YOUR LIFE’S TASK: ANSWERING THE CALL 📞
CREATIVITY: REVERSING NEURODEVELOPMENTAL DISORDERS [AND HOW TO PREVENT NEURODEGENERATIVE DISEASES]