The Anxiety of an Idea Life Cycle

Ideas can change the world.

Concept of idea and innovation with wool ball

The greatest companies and inventions in history all started with the tiniest inkling of an idea. But dreaming up a brilliant idea is never cut and dry. It’s messy, it’s stressful and it’s exhausting.

I can definitely relate to the mess that is idea-storming. My husband calls me, not the great idea fairy (which would be mean!), but a creator – much nicer right? He is more of a refiner, so often discussing ideas with him is difficult. I think they are fantastic, and he is the realist who brings me back down to earth.

These two people are part of four key positions in an effective team. The creator is the person who thinks up something, the advancer is the person who moves the ball forward, step by step – turning a great idea into something real. The third member is the refiner, whose favorite word is “but” – “but did you think about X?”, “but what if Y happens?”, etc. They want to be sure nothing goes wrong. Finally, the fourth position is the executor – who implements the idea and it is in action!
Dreistadt, M. (2018, September 10). Team Dynamics: 4 Key Positions. Retrieved from https://www.infinityconcepts.net/2012/02/team-dynamics-the-4-positions-that-create-an-effective-team/

I have so many ideas swirling around in my head, sometimes it gives me anxiety. I literally can’t sleep because I am dreaming up the feasibility plans for these ideas.

Take our real estate investing, for example. When I was bringing in the big money at my previous job, we had no problem qualifying for houses and could move forward in our real estate investing journey with the only road block being time. Having recently left my job, though, we have a much lower pre-qualifying ceiling. So, I lay there thinking up ideas on how to keep investing with a lower pre-qualification level. My brain travels from wholesale to flipping with a hard money loan or all cash, from partnering with others to even pursuing a small business loan to start a flipping business (who even knows if that is possible).

Then I move on to the idea of starting up my own healthcare consulting firm. My job was to be the program director of several regulatory/healthcare quality programs. I would lead the implementation and improvement efforts related to them. I was good at it! That energized me to find the areas for improvement and then see the results come back in successful reporting. However, the flexibility in my schedule was lacking and that is important to me as well. So, could I start my own Merit Based Incentive Program consulting firm? I am confident in my ability to guide practices to success with this, but how in the world do I get started with clients? My brain starts racing.

64100264 – macra (medicare access and chip reauthorization act of 2015), mips, apm and colorful healthcare vector diagram

Before I know it, two or three hours have passed and I still am not sleeping. So, I have started to practice meditation while laying in bed and it has helped a lot. I downloaded the Calm app and I would recommend it to anyone who has trouble like this! It is an app that guides you through meditation and offers relaxing bedtime stories if you are into that. There are premium features as well, but I just use the free version and have learned to focus on my breathing – only my breathing – while I am trying to fall asleep.

One big deep breath, hold it, exhale fully. Second big deep breath, hold it, exhale fully. Third big deep breath, hold it, fully exhale. Then breathe normally, paying attention to the breath as it leaves your body and passes through your nose.

Finally, I can feel myself relaxing and drifting to sleep. Then, I wake up and put my brain to work on figuring out the advancing part of that team dynamic. Another thing Steven has recently recommended is to keep a notepad next to my bed, so that when my ideas are flowing, I can write them down. That way, I won’t be even more worried about not remembering my ideas and can pick up where I left off in the morning.

As two people on the same team, we have to play multiple roles. While I am mostly the creator, I have to learn to be an advancer and an executor as well… the refining position is harder for me to learn, but Steven helps me – even if we butt heads a little bit in the process.