What if I told you that you could stop overworking and underearning? Have I got your attention yet?
In this episode, we will dive into how to turn ideas into action with a fun ritual instead of spinning your wheels and feeling like you are getting nowhere.
IE 247: How to Turn Ideas into Action with a Fun Ritual with Linsi Brownson
Linsi Brownson is a life and business coach for creatives. She helps ambitious creative people have more time, freedom, money, and joy in their lives and work.
Creatives Face Unique Challenges
While Linsi sees everyone as creative, those in business to sell their creative ideas have some particular challenges, such as time management, productivity, and a tendency to struggle with their sense of self-worth.
When you don’t have a good sense of your worth, you will struggle to price your work correctly and value what you offer.
If you are a creative services provider, such as a writer, you may have difficulty balancing working for income with having the free time to get your work accomplished. And if you are a woman, it tends to be doubly hard because you are likely also fulfilling the typical female role in your family.
If you are a blogger or podcaster, you have probably been putting out free content for years, and the turn toward paid products might seem confusing or too complicated. Linsi is here to help you figure out how to take your ideas and turn them into action.
Developing a Creative Code of Conduct
As a creative, you are likely bombarded with ideas all day, every day. It’s the best and worst part about being a creative. The ideas pour out of you 24/7, but the time, energy, and know-how to turn those ideas into action can seem out of reach.
Linsi suggests starting your process of turning your ideas into action with a creative “code of conduct.”
These are simply the guidelines that you set for how you want to show up in the world.
- Who do you want to be each day?
- How do you want to run your business?
- What is your business model?
- What are your boundaries?
Essentially, it’s figuring out what your big-picture priorities are for your business. You decide ahead of time how much time and energy you are willing to put into your business, and then you measure your ideas against those boundaries you set.
With so many ideas flowing all the time, we need a measuring stick to see what is feasible for us and which ideas we need to let go of, at least for the time being. A great question to ask yourself before deciding to take action on an idea is, do I have time to carry this through to completion?
How to Put Your Ideas into Action
As a creative, you know that you are more likely to do something if something is fun. Linsi knows that too, and so she has developed fun rituals for her creative clients to help them as they begin turning their ideas into action instead of just being an idea factory.
First, if you have some ideas that you know aren’t feasible for the present, Linsi uses a ritual called “Idea Catching.” It teaches you how to bank these ideas to come back to later. This is for the ideas that are a “not right now.”
However, for the ideas that you want to proceed with, Linsi has a fun ritual called “30-Day Done.”
As the name suggests, this involves working on an idea for 30 days, and Linsi uses this for both short and long-term goals. There are 5 steps to this ritual. Here are the first 3-
- Outline an actionable and specific goal.
- Break down the outcomes between starting and completion.
- Identify obstacles and strategies for overcoming them.
Be sure to grab Linsi’s free download to get the entire process so you can work through it with your ideas!
How Do You Choose the Right Idea?
When your brain is an idea factory, the most difficult thing can be figuring out which idea is the right idea to follow through on right now. That analysis paralysis can be the thing that keeps you from ever taking action in your business. And it leaves you feeling defeated.
Linsi says there is no right idea. There is only the idea you choose to focus on for the present.
This might go against everything you’ve ever been told or that you believe, but the fact is, if you have ten ideas that are all actually viable, you could likely turn any one of them into a raging success by following the ritual Linsi has for turning ideas into action.
The way to choose the right idea is to choose any viable idea and commit to it for the “30-Day Done” process. The more you work on an idea, the more committed you are to it and the more it feels like the right idea.
How Many Ideas Can You Work on at Once?
I can hear my creatives asking, “So, how many ideas can I have in the 30-day process at once?”
Linsi suggests one. I know, I know, but hear her out.
When you focus on one idea and are committed to developing that idea for 30 days, you will gain so much more traction than if you are also trying to establish two or three other ideas simultaneously.
When you can give 100% of your efforts to a viable idea, you will inevitably see success with it simply because of the time, attention, and commitment you give to it.
Balancing Creativity with Productivity
I find, with my clients, that creatives struggle with productivity. It can feel like you’re spinning your wheels and never accomplishing anything.
Let’s define creativity as all of the energy and ideas that we put into our work and productivity as the actual production of something resulting from that energy.
Linsi always suggests using a calendar system, having an idea of what you want to produce, and setting a time boundary on those things. For example, get crystal clear on maybe 2-3 things you want to produce in a particular week, and then figure out how much creative time it will take to get them done.
This takes forward-thinking and going back to the first step of the ritual, where you set your specific goal.
Turn Your Ideas into Action
If you’re a creative and this conversation with Linsi has resonated with you, she is offering a free download for my listeners to walk you through her exact process for turning your ideas into action.
You can find all of Linsi’s free resources on her website, www.linsibrownson.com/, and click on the Resources tab at the top of the page. Or you can find Linsi on Instagram and request her free download. And as always, you can DM me on Instagram, and I will gladly send you the link.
Action Steps:
- If you liked this episode of Influencer Entrepreneurs, please subscribe and leave a fabulous review!
- Join the conversation on Instagram by tagging Jenny when you’re listening to the podcast. She’ll send you a personal message whenever you tag her.
