Creative Ideas: We Think. Then Doubt.

Ideas need care and love. They need support and nourishment.

This is a guest post by Anthony Meindl

The light bulb moment. The great idea. The spark of inspiration. We all have them. Thoughts that are fueled by intuition and creativity.

These brilliant flashes of genius reside within us but are connected to something much larger than ourselves.

And then we THINK about them. (Don’t do that!)

Over and over. And again and again. The more we think about the original idea, the further we move from its original intent: to take action and give birth to the idea out in the world.

We think. Then doubt. We become fearful of what it will take to make the idea come to life. We fast-forward into the future and worry about worst-case scenarios. We over-think and then ask other people what they think. We listen to them and begin to doubt ourselves more. We come up with innumerable reasons why the idea won’t work.

And so it doesn’t. It becomes entombed. Fossilized. Buried. Shelved.

We have this amazing, creative thought. And then we have thoughts about that thought and more thoughts and more thoughts and more thoughts until the original creative idea is buried so deep within our left-brains, it has no outlet for expression.

You would need a backhoe to get it out! And who’s got a backhoe? (Well HARD HAT HARRY does but that’s another story.)
So it becomes yet another idea you let die. It becomes extinct.

Ideas need care and love. They need support and nourishment.

And most of all – they need to be acted on.

So this week, whatever idea – whatever creative thought of something you’ve wanted to do pops into your head and you still haven’t done – you are going to!

It’s easier to act your way into a new way of thinking than to think your way into a new way of acting.

Think less, people. Act more!

 

Anthony Meindl is an award-winning writer, producer, director and actor whose first feature screenplay, THE WONDER GIRLS, was the Grand Prize Winning Feature Screenplay in the Slamdance Film Festival Screenplay Competition in 2007. Prior to this accomplishment, Meindl was responsible for the production of an array of award-winning projects. His background in acting, training, and performance has afforded him the opportunity to create what has become a thriving artist community in Los Angeles.

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