Getting Out of Your Head and Into the World

Hi lady! Hope you're well. Do you have a dream of starting a side business or project? Jessica, for example, was obsessed with making kombucha, a delicious fermented, pro-biotic tea that was good for your gut. She really wanted launch a line of her own kombucha, but could never seem to prioritize it in her life. Work, relationships, and family would get in the way. When we started working together, we created a timeline and certain steps for her getting it out into the world.

The problem? The label. Jessica wondered: What color would the label be? What size? What wording would it have on it? What was the logo? She was paralyzed with the infinite number of decisions she had to make about her new line. The deeper problem? She was terrified of getting it wrong. 

This is a major obstacle to being a badass: overthinking and being precious. We all do it. 

I have often been trapped in cycles of over-thinking my options. My strategies for gaining more clarity have been talking about it with people, asking for advice, researching zealously on the internet and in academic databases, and watching others as they do today what I want to do in the near future. 

Though these are all forms of preparation, it slips into the unhealthy side: paralysis, procrastination, and distraction.

Just like Jessica, I would get so precious about what I was putting out into the world, as if it couldn't change, or evolve. As if it was the only way to do it. And this preciousness would stall me. Would stall me for days, weeks, and months. 

But we don't get genuine clarity from sitting at home and seeking information from second-hand sources. We get clarity from putting something out there, seeing whether it resonates, and iterating. 

It was helpful for Jessica and I to frame this initial launch as a kind of "beta" or "prototype" that would change in the future, so she didn't have to feel so much pressure to get it right this first time. The beautiful magic of timelines and deadlines is they invite us to make it happen whether we feel ready or not. They invite us to be brave. 

In earning my Masters in Design, I had the opportunity to experience design thinking at the Stanford Design School — which has hugely informed my work with women today. Design thinking is a methodology that helps us get outside of our minds and actually test whether an idea will work. I love to encourage my clients to test and experiment their idea.

Here's what we wonder together:

• How can we experiment and test your idea (or belief) in small ways?

• How can we get real data from our environment, instead of spinning these ideas in our head?

• How can we be less precious about this project in general?

This kind of thinking is golden when you are testing the waters of entrepreneurship, a new role at work, or trying to grow a side project.

But our tendency is to want to act in a big, perfect way when it's better to dream in a big way and act in a small one.

Then we begin to build our creative confidence. When we have an experimental attitude, we're less attached to the results. 

So even if you're at your full time job, how might you be less precious about what you want to put out into the world? Comment below in this post.

xx
Majo

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Photo by Helena Price