This is episode 252, and today I want to talk to you about nurturing your next big idea, the common mistakes that I see people making and how to go about things instead, so let’s dig in.

If you want to do things differently but need some help making it happen then tune in for your weekly dose of coaching from me, Maisie Hill, Master Life Coach and author of Period Power. Welcome to The Maisie Hill Experience.

Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, wherever you are joining me from today. I feel really inspired to talk to you about what to do with your ideas. Most of what I do in my life, professional life is pretty established. And I’ve been doing what I do for many years in a variety of forms, whether that was working as a practitioner, then a coach. Writing, creating, running my own business, being an entrepreneur, being a birth doula, working with the cycle, understanding hormones, stress responses, mindset, emotions.

One way or another, I’ve been doing all of these things for a very long time, decades. So, what you see are all the things that are established in me and in my work. And there have been many, many versions of each of those things; some have been very present and dominant in my life and then ebbed away to a degree, but really all of these things are always there. And I use them every day somehow, not necessarily in the form that I used to use them in or was taught to use them in.

For example, my degree is in Chinese medicine, acupuncture. But I can’t remember the last time I put a needle in someone. Actually, literally, as I say that, I’m like, “No, I can.” I treated Paul recently with some acupuncture and reflexology. But I only use those skills in that way a few times a year. But I use the theory of them every single day in terms of how I understand things and how I coach people, and just my sense of someone and particular situations, that theory comes in.

But earlier on this year, I had a new idea, something that is very new to me, but in some ways it would also just be a continuation of everything I’ve ever done. And I thought it would be interesting and helpful to share with you how I have been interacting with this idea. Mainly because I want it to be a resource that supports my clients in my membership. Because every season we invite the members to set an intention for that season in the form of a result that they want to create in their life, a goal of some kind.

And a lot of those goals are often internal goals, like having a more compassionate relationship, not being so critical of themselves, working with their stress responses, learning how to trust themselves and have confidence. All of those things are good examples of internal goals. But this episode is more about external goals like changing your career or moving somewhere, or just doing something different, making a change.

And I wanted to create this because it often comes up on our coaching calls that are related to goals, where someone has an idea, but they don’t know what to do with their idea. That’s not how they describe it to me. But that’s how I see the issue as their coach.

So, the way they talk about it is by saying things like, “I don’t know how I’m going to do this. It’s going to be hard. There are too many challenges. I don’t know where to start. Nobody believes in me. Nobody supports me. I don’t have enough time. I don’t have enough money. I don’t have enough energy. I don’t live somewhere where I can do this thing.” And all the other flavours of I don’t have enough of something, therefore, I can’t do this.

And I know that to them it feels heavy and insurmountable, and it just puts a damper on their idea. But the only reason it feels that way is because of how you are thinking, which is really great because it means that the solution is really simple. You just need to change how your thinking, adopt a different mindset. And that’s true even if you do have limited resources in one area or several areas of your life, and I’m going to show you why.

So, this episode is essentially a training for you all on how to interact with your ideas, because that’s the actual issue that we need to solve. So, let’s talk about availability of resources, because that tends to be the first, most immediate layer that someone presents for us to address before we can get on to anything else.

So, availability of resources, and specifically the lack of them, is a very real thing. So, I do not in any way want to understate the importance of things like money, time, energy, access to information, and having a community. Those are all resources that matter; there are other ones too.

And we can certainly use coaching and other tools to change both our thoughts about them, as well as increasing the amount of those resources. For example, a client can come to me as they commonly do and say that they’re really busy and that they don’t have enough time to do something, to work on their idea. And we can interrogate that and assess if that’s actually true. Because usually, most often it’s just a sentence that someone is so used to saying and so used to hearing from other people that we don’t even say it consciously, we just roll it out. And we accept it as fact and speak about it as if it were 100% true.

The best example I have of this is when the first lockdown happened here in the UK, and I was writing my second book. This was during COVID, and I was writing Perimenopause Power. Nelson was at home. He had just turned four. Paul and I both had work to do, plus parenting, teaching Nelson, being his friends and his entertainment and all the things. And lots of people we knew were in a similar boat.

So, I had a coaching session with someone where I was complaining about how I was never alone and, therefore, writing a book was going to be impossible. I was being really quite dramatic about it, I think. And I was saying how Nelson was always with me and interrupting me, and I could never get a moment alone, blah blah blah. And Lisa, who was coaching me, said, “Oh, is he in the room with you right now?” And just instantly, I was like, “Oh, bollocks, I’ve been caught.” I was like, “No, he isn’t.”

And she said something along the lines of, “Oh, interesting. So, it’s not true that he’s always with you and interrupting you.” And I was like, “Yeah, okay, fair point.” And our session was 20 minutes long. And her coaching was that I could focus on something for 20 minutes and possibly not be interrupted, not all the time. And the real question was, did I believe that I could write a book by writing in 20 minute blocks of time or 10 minutes or 5 minutes, whatever happened to be available to me? And that ended up being how I wrote that entire book.

So, can you see how I was telling myself that I had no time to write, but I actually did? But my thoughts, I’m not going to be able to do this. I’m going to be interrupted. I never have any time alone. That’s what was causing me to not have time, especially when you consider that those snatches of time that I did get, I was probably complaining to my friends about not having any time because I was so invested in that storyline. And I think that was kind of a way of bonding and being close with people through that shared experience.

And I think I was kind of hesitant to move away from that and be different. So, we can use mindset coaching there. We can also use awareness of stress responses and emotions to see how they impact our ability to use our time, but we can also use them to create more time. And a good example of this is how much time is taken up with concerns about what other people will think of you and how they’ll react to you both in terms of the time you actually spend worrying as well as all the things that you do or don’t do in order to try and manage other people’s potential reactions.

So, if we use coaching for you to trust yourself more and care less about what others think of you and not be scared of their reactions, then you’ll end up with way more time. So that’s what I mean about how we can use coaching, but there’s something else at hand here. So that’s the first layer. The second layer is that people usually think that they are going to need a great deal of resources to do something. And that might be true, especially if you are looking at the biggest version of something, the fullest expression of it.

But we don’t need to start with the 100% version of something. What’s the 5% version or the 1% version? I coached someone recently on this in a call in the membership because they were getting overwhelmed with their thoughts about all the things that they thought their goal required. And at the start of working towards a goal, we really have no idea what’s actually going to be required. Probably something in the region of 30% of what you think you’re going to need to do is actually going to be required.

And then there’s, I don’t know, 70% or so of what you haven’t even considered as being a factor because you don’t know until you’re in it and you’re doing it. And I was just like, “Well, what’s the first 5% of all of that?” I can’t recall exactly what they said, but I think it was something, and other people who I’ve coached have said something along these lines of it involves doing some research, maybe reading a book on the topic, watching a talk, listening to a podcast, sending a few emails. It’s things in that zone.

And they didn’t feel overwhelmed by that, not because of the task, but their thoughts about that task. That’s easy. That’s no big deal. It’s not going to take me much time. I’m going to enjoy doing that. That would be interesting to take a look at that. You see how all of those thoughts create curiosity, intrigue, it feeling easy and doable, all of those things? Very different thoughts to the ones that I mentioned earlier. And then they do that task but then they get to focus on their next best step, do that, then move on to the next best step. It’s way more doable like that.

But let’s also consider the seed of an idea because that’s how I like to think about ideas. It’s a seed, it has potential, and it also needs a nurturing environment in order to germinate and take root. So, this is the stage where we allow ourselves to dream, to entertain all the what-ifs and the could-be’s. It’s a delicate time for any idea. And it might not be fully formed. It’s not meant to be at this stage, it’s a seed. So, it holds within it the potential for something that is huge and magnificent and stunning and creates an impact and gives birth to loads of other seeds.

So that’s how I want you to think about ideas. It’s just a seed. What environment are you providing for that seed? You see the difference, if you think about it like that? Approach it like that rather than thinking of everything it’s going to take for it to grow into a mighty oak over the next 50 years. There’s a time and a place for thinking about those resources, that is important, but not at this beginning stage.

So, this idea of yours is a tiny spark. It’s just a whisper of possibility that has chosen you as its custodian. Isn’t that amazing? You have been chosen as the custodian of this idea. You are responsible for safeguarding that spark. So, what you’re not going to do, I hope, is blow it out and stamp it out with criticism and judgment and all your thoughts about how it’s not possible. So instead, you’re going to give it a chance to breathe, to expand, to be wanted.

Let yourself want it, truly want it, because that is a crucial part of this process, letting yourself desire it, to feel the pull of its potential and be in the wanting. So many people skip past this part and go straight into the doing, but this part shouldn’t be neglected. It’s important. And if you want to hear more about that, then go listen to Practising Wanting, which is episode 90 of the podcast. And in that space of wanting, you find the energy to nurture the idea, to protect it, to feed it with your thoughts, your passion.

And that will sustain you through the challenges that are inevitably going to happen when you start to take more tangible action, but wanting is an action. Because dreaming about the possibility of your idea is not just idle fantasy, it’s an act of creation. It’s the process of taking that spark and blowing gently on it, giving it the oxygen it needs to grow into a flame and get going. This is where you play with your idea. Turn it over in your mind. Look at it from all angles. Visualise your future self in that reality. What is it like to be there?

And you can be asking yourself, well, what if this were true, what if this were possible? And in doing that, you’re not just passively hoping. You’re actively creating and exploring the pathways that will make it a reality. Because if you go there first in your mind and you’re in your imagination, you’re literally already creating the neural pathways, you already get going. So, this is the time to let your mind wander, to imagine your idea taking shape in the real world. What does that look like?

And even if you don’t know the specifics of it so you don’t want to get trapped in the detail here. If the detail comes to you, wonderful. But just what’s the general vibe of it? How does it feel? What are you like doing this thing? How do other people respond to it? Who does it help? How does it move? What qualities does it have? How does it breathe and exist as an idea that has found its form in the world? So, it’s daydreaming, but it’s daydreaming that’s about constructing a vision that will guide you forward and sustain you.

And as you entertain your idea, as you allow it to dance through your consciousness, you’re doing more than just thinking; you’re feeling it. You’re connecting with that emotional current that will become the lifeblood of your idea as it grows. So, it’s in this emotional connection that you find the strength to overcome obstacles, the resilience to keep going when things get tough. And also, the courage to put your idea out into the world. So, as you sit with your idea, you let it germinate. You let it take root in that fertile soil of your imagination.

Just remember that this is an essential part of the creative process, let yourself be here. It’s just the in breath before the action, the gathering of energy before you take the leap and get going with things. Now, once your idea has begun to take root, you might feel a sense of urgency creeping in. So, does it feel urgent? And if it does feel urgent, then why? Urgency isn’t a bad thing, but you want to know where it’s coming from.

For example, with my first book, Period Power, that felt urgent. I felt an urgency to write it and an urgency to publish it, an urgency for it to be in people’s hands and then for them to be reading it. It was burning in me. And I knew how impactful it would be to people who read it. Well, I had a sense, it’s kind of blowing my mind just how impactful it’s been, thanks to all your messages. They’re just amazing.

But this is something that had also been in me as something that I wanted to do for many, many years before. So, it was a slow burner. It’s like it had been cooked low and slow in the oven. And then the writing part of it was the final element. It’s like when you reverse sear meat by putting it in the oven or the sous vide first and then putting it into a hot pan to finish it on a high heat. So that heat and urgency was necessary and useful otherwise, it would just languish in my brain and never see the light of day.

So, can you see how that final urgency came after years of slow cooking it inside me? And it’s also different from urgency that’s rooted in not enough-ness and scarcity. So that’s when you need it to happen in order to think and feel a certain way about yourself or be seen by others in that way. So, that can look like all sorts of things. One thing it can look like is in the form of worry. Worry that you’re going to lose connection with your idea or forget it, or that other people will do your thing first, and maybe they’ll do it better than you.

Or because other people do it, your thing will become irrelevant or inferior. And of course, business-wise wise that can make a difference, but I don’t think creating something or doing something from panic and fear and worry is the most useful. Because when you’re in a stress response that has you rushing and it has that urgency, then your survival brain will be activated, and your thinking brain, your creative brain won’t be engaged. And we really want it to be engaged.

We want it to be the other way around, for your survival brain to be deactivated and your thinking, creative brain to be brought online. Because that’s going help you to generate ideas, to problem solve and be goal-oriented rather than threat-oriented, which is what happens when you go into a stress response. So, there are all sorts of ways that you can be intentional with how you interact with your ideas. And I just want to remind you of the incredible journey an idea can take you on if you just are willing to go along for the ride.

From that first flicker of inspiration, the nurturing of its potential, and then the courage it takes to bring it into reality, but just remember that your ideas chose you for a reason. So, you are their custodian, their champion, and their voice. So don’t let the whispers of doubt or things like that snuff out that brilliance that you have within you. And embrace the resources that you do have. Lean into the possibilities, play with those possibilities and let that seed of your idea germinate, let it germinate in your imagination and with intention.

So, as we close off the conversation for today and as you move forward, just ask yourself, what’s one small step I can take today to honour my idea, whatever it is? What can I do to give it the space to breathe and grow? And sometimes it really doesn’t take much for the most profound transformation to happen. So, take that step. Trust in the process. Let your ideas unfold. You’ve got everything you need to begin. The rest will come as you move through that journey of creation. 

Hey, if you love listening to this podcast then come and check out my membership, Powerful, where you get my best resources and all the coaching you need to transform your inner and outer life. Sign up to the waitlist at maisiehill.com/powerful, and I’ll see you in the community.