Struggling with a super-creative brain and feeling guilty about not taking action on your brilliant ideas? This episode will teach you what you need to do to balance creativity with consistency, spontaneity with structure, and brilliance with bandwidth, so you can finally put your genius ideas into action in your business and life.

In this episode, you will learn  to:

• Master the art of juggling creativity & consistency to produce more creative output
• Break free from idea paralysis & take meaningful steps to follow through with confidence
• Overcome the trap of perfectionism and embrace continuous growth & development.
• Connect with & learn from like-minded individuals to enhance your creative journey.
• Achieve balance between autonomy and accountability to ensure business success.

Mic Drop Moment: 

"The people who move the needle in their business are not the ones with the perfect ideas. They are the ones who will take a good enough idea and put it in front of people, risking rejection, risking failure, but willing to get feedback  Stop overthinking, stop second-guessing, start taking action, and let the market decide."  Diann Wingert 

Did you know I have a private podcast, called "Show Up Like a Boss?" It's like having your very own backstage pass to what it would be like to work with me by sharing 10 of the most common challenges my clients face, and how I help them change their mindset while building their skill set and resiliency. There are takeaways for each episode so you can apply what you learn to your own business and life.  Access this FREE private podcast right from your regular podcast player:  https://bit.ly/3ZOD3CK

Podcast reviews really do motivate me to keep creating this show & bringing you awesome guests and no-BS solo episodes, so if you are a regular listener and haven’t left one yet,  what are you waiting for?  

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Other episodes for highly creative entrepreneurs you will also enjoy: 

Ep #121 The Cure for Imposter Syndrome - https://bit.ly/3AnPBWe

Ep #103 How to Deal with Fear, Uncertainty & Doubt - https://bit.ly/3Mp4sDZ

Ep # 57 The High Cost of Perfectionism -  https://bit.ly/3cfAdzO

If you are a highly creative solopreneur - coach, consultant, agency owner, or independent professional, maybe it’s time you experienced my signature coaching program for female solopreneurs, the Boss Up Breakthrough. The only way you can work with me right now is through my 1:1 coaching program., and the first step is to schedule a free 30-minute consultation right here:  https://bit.ly/3qrJ9YQ

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Even though this is a shorter-than-usual episode,  for the scanners, here are some time stamps: 

 00:00:05 - Balancing Creativity and Consistency

00:03:14 - Recognizing Value in Your Ideas

00:10:40 - Taking Action on Your Ideas

00:15:33 - Overcoming Perfectionism

00:18:27 - Don't Hold Back Your Best Ideas

00:19:32 - Why You Should Share Your Art Now

00:20:34 - The Importance of Having a Coach

00:21:34 - Finding the Just Right Approach

Welcome back driven woman entrepreneur. You know, something I hear again and again and again from my clients and from the people who follow me online, is how challenging it is to balance creativity and consistency. A lot of people feel that kind of forcing themself to conform to the norm to adopt some sort of rigid rituals, routines, structures, systems is the only way that they can get things done but as a creative person, they hate that idea so much. Now, I gotta tell you, I am no stranger to these challenges myself, and so I'm always on the lookout for innovative ways to learn how to balance my creativity with the need for consistency. Balancing spontaneity with structure and balancing brilliance with bandwidth and just like you, some days I do an outstanding job of it and others not so much.

So in this episode, I'm going to be sharing my latest thoughts on what to do when you have a super creative brain, the kind that's always spitting out one amazing idea after another. It might make you the envy of all your friends who aren't like us, but you and I know it can be a real problem. As a matter of fact, it creates three different kinds of problems, and I'm gonna get into that in just a minute, so stay with me.

Okay, I told you that there are three kinds of problems that highly creative people have, and we're gonna get into them right now. Are you ready? Okay, number one, a highly creative person who has an abundance of ideas tends to have trouble knowing which of those ideas to pay attention to, to focus on, to turn into something, whether that's a blog post, a podcast episode, a book, a course, a program, a keynote speech, anything at all. Two, when you have an idea fountain for a brain, it also means that you struggle with getting yourself to stick with an idea. Once the novelty wears off and the real work begins, and three, when you have so many brilliant ideas, you probably don't even recognize that any of them are worth doing because let's face it, the best idea you've ever had is the one you haven't had yet or maybe it's the one at the top of the stack.

You know the one you literally just had and you're still totally infatuated with. Why, because it is ripe with potential and it has not yet been tainted by failure, imperfection, rejection, and the inevitability of boredom. So in this short solo episode, I'm going to talk about how to deal with the problem of endless creativity because of all the struggles we have with focus, follow through, and simply recognizing the value of your own brilliant ideas because you just keep creating more of them. Now, trust me when I say this is not a hashtag humble brag. I work with many highly creative people who experience real suffering because they can't pin themselves down to just one of countless ideas when they try to focus on one of them, another one comes along and distracts them, and they kind of just take all of it for granted because it doesn't seem so darn special when you can't seem to stick with any of them so I think it is a real challenge.

Now whether you identify with having ADHD being gifted, having both ADHD and giftedness, or simply being a person with an imagination and an overactive imagination at that, I prefer to refer to women like us as having big ideas and busy brains. So if this fits you, you don't need a diagnosis. And if this resonates with you, after you listen, will you please DM me at Coach Diann Wingert on either LinkedIn or Instagram? I would love to hear what you learned from this episode and what you're going to do differently as a result of having listened.

So I'm one of those people that has an abundance of ideas too. Sometimes they all come at me in a flurry and sometimes I can get them to come on demand, no lie, that's more challenging. When I'm in the middle of a creative brainstorming session, it is so exciting to just crank them out one after another. But more likely they're gonna show up at an inconvenient and inopportune moment and when that happens, it's a distraction. It can even feel like a nuisance. I once posted on social media and asked my followers, when do their genius ideas show up? You wanna know what the top three times are, in the shower, while driving and in the middle of the night. Now I love a good idea. I really, really do but I love getting a good night's sleep, even more. So if you are one of those people that wakes up with a brilliant idea, but you need more sleep, do yourself a favor and keep a lined notepad. Even a small one will do on your bedside table along with a sharp pencil, if that brilliant idea wakes you up out of a deep sleep, it's probably a good one.

So turn the light on for just a quick second, or leave the room if you don't wanna disturb the person sleeping next to you, jot it down and go back to bed. Do not get up and try to flush it out in the middle of it will come back to you. Trust me. Here's the thing, there are people who are masterful at execution, but they don't have the ability to pop out genius ideas like we do to save their lives. So if you are an ideator, it really is a gift. I'm not saying it's a curse because it isn't, but it can be a struggle, especially if you're in business. And particularly if you're in business by yourself, because coming up with ideas is the fun part in case you hadn't noticed. If you don't know how to see them through, if you don't know how to implement them, if you don't know how to capture them and hang on to them and direct them and develop them, there's not much point to having them and it really doesn't feel that fun after a while.

I have always loved having a super fast, super creative idea filled brain, but for many, many years I never felt particularly compelled to do anything with most of those ideas. Sometimes I would come up with an idea for a new product, a new service, a whole new business, but I never felt any urgency about actually executing any of them. It reminds me of something I read once that most people get as much enjoyment at a fantasizing about going on vacation than they actually get from going on one. So here's the thing, if you have a brain like this and you take it for granted, it will go to waste. Now, you may decide that you don't wanna make the product or the service of the business just because you thought of the idea even if it's one of your better ones, you don't have to do that.

But I'm gonna be honest with you, the spark does start to slow down as you get older and as you get weighted down by other responsibilities and obligations in life. So all those wonderful, unused ideas of yours will eventually find their way into someone else's business. Because if you are not going to use them, if you're just gonna let 'em fizzle out and be forgotten about, I promise you someone half as creative, half as talented as you are, will make them a reality. Now, I have been working with entrepreneurs and creatives just like you and I for years, and one of the things I really didn't expect was that the most successful of them is not necessarily the most brilliant.

It's also not necessarily the most hardworking. Oftentimes the ones that are way out in front of the pack are simply the ones who are able to take action on their ideas. Even if they weren't sure that they were the best ideas, even if they didn't know if they'd be well received in the marketplace, even if they didn't think they were their most special ideas, because they recognized that idea factory of a brain was not an unlimited resource. Some of my clients were simply willing to act on their ideas but they also spent too much time trying to perfect them before they unleash them on the marketplace. And this can be really, really painful when while you're tweaking and tweaking and tweaking, somebody else is gonna get out there and introduce basically the same thing in a less than perfect form.

But the difference is because they're taking action, they're using customer feedback to improve their product or service as they go along. Now, most of us that are highly creative tend to be perfectionists and perfectionism almost always goes hand in hand with procrastination and people pleasing. This is how it looks, I have this great idea, but I don't wanna share it with anyone because they might reject it. So I'm gonna work on it and work on it, and work on it until I can make it so perfect that no one could possibly turn it down. And I myself will believe it is absolutely the best of the best. And when it gets there, I will absolutely tell people about it and offer it to 'em, get paid for it. But it's not how it works. It really isn't how it works.

The people who move the needle in their business are probably not the ones with the perfect ideas. They are the ones who will take a good enough idea and put it in front of people risking rejection, risking failure but willing to get feedback so that they can improve it, so that they can offer the next iteration of it that will sell. So I don't mean to be a Debbie Downer, and I don't mean to give you a sucker punch to the gut, but if it hasn't happened to you yet, it will. You will see someone else take credit for your brilliant idea and make money from it. It has happened to me time and time again, and I would get mad, I would get sad, I would feel guilty, I'd feel like a victim, none of that changed a damn thing. So I gotta give you a couple of uncomfortable truths and here is how they go, are you ready?

Uncomfortable truth number one, do not underestimate the value of your creativity. You will not keep producing top quality ideas indefinitely unless you start taking action on at least some of them. Now, this is not because your creativity is gonna just dry up and blow away. It is because you will become so accustomed to thinking that your ideas are no big deal. Or that you're not ready, or this idea isn't good enough, or you haven't made it perfect yet, that will become so normal for you that you simply won't pull the trigger. And no matter how many people tell you how brilliant your idea is, you won't have the confidence to withstand the uncertainty that is evolved in putting your stuff in front of people in the marketplace. You know what, you also won't have the stamina. The stamina to hold tight to see it through, to deal with the doubters, the haters, the rejections.

You won't be able to have the resiliency to deal with that because you don't have practice dealing with it. You don't have to be the most creative as a matter of fact, being the most creative is probably holding you back. You also don't have to be the most original. You don't have to have something for sale that is completely disruptive and innovative, and it's gonna rip people's eyelids off and make their heads spin around but you do need to get moving. And if you don't put your stuff out there, someone else will. Now you can blame them. You can play the victim. You can feel sorry for yourself, but frankly, they're only doing what you would've done if you had taken yourself and your brilliance more seriously. Sorry, not sorry.

You ready for uncomfortable Truth number two? Perfectionism is nature's way of protecting you from rejection, sensitivity, and it's also preventing you from getting feedback. Yeah, feedback, see, we have to be willing to risk rejection and failure because that's feedback. The kind of feedback that comes from the market, your potential audience, your fans, your followers, even the people who would be dying to buy something from you, if only you would just fricking make it and offer it to them but you're never gonna know unless you try. You're never going to know unless you're willing to get past your perfectionism, deal with your procrastination, work on your people pleasing so that you can just ship it. So that you won't just keep on tweaking, tweaking, tweaking, tweaking, because I got news for you, that highly creative brain, that brain that is literally spilling over with brilliance never really knows how special it is, and because of the perfectionism, that is the inevitable result of that kind of brain.

We never actually know when enough is enough either. So we take our brilliance for granted and we never know when something's good enough to just put it out there. So please, please take it from me, stop overthinking. Stop second guessing, take action and let the market decide. You can always make it better almost every person I've ever known has heard of beta programs, right? So make it a beta program, make it a beta offer, and improve it later based on the feedback you get from the early adopters and the first few sales. Real world data is actually the only way you can make it better because without real world data, you are relying on your inner critic to guide you. That is the worst GPS on the planet, your inner critic is never gonna be satisfied with anything you do, never.

Now, I know I'm coming down hard. I know I'm lecturing you. I know you're feeling really cringed right now, but the reason I'm speaking these uncomfortable truths is because I don't want you to live with the regret of missed opportunities. Please don't hold your best ideas inside. Please don't keep them under wraps because you don't think they're interesting enough or because you don't think you're relevant or because you don't think you're talented enough. This is such a genuine waste of creativity and all the gifts that you are so capable of offering to the world, to a world that frankly, desperately needs them will never happen unless you get them out there. In case you haven't noticed, our world is so, so full of hate and pain and confusion right now, I don't think there has ever, ever been a better time to share your art, your experience, your perspective, your genius, your magic. You don't have to use all your killer ideas right now.

If you really don't know how to pick, put a fricking blindfold on. Just write 'em down on little pieces of paper, scramble 'em around, and just pick one at random. It can literally be that easy because all you have to do is take the first step. I will not be the only one in the cheering section I guaran-freaking-tee it. Now to make this personal, I gotta tell you how it's been for me, having a highly creative brain for many years. At the beginning of each new year, I told myself, this is the year I'm gonna do it, this is the year I'm gonna get crystal clear about my goals. I'm gonna crush 'em. I'm gonna get my shit together. I'm gonna put my magic out in the world and I'm gonna do it all by myself. But it really truly was not until I started hiring my own coaches and consultants that I realized what a difference it makes when you have guidance, support, and accountability from someone who is not only like-minded, but like brained.

If you are a highly creative person, please seek out someone who is also highly creative and has a very busy brain to guide you. But of course, it should be someone who's learned how to work with that kind of brain. What I do is help my clients identify their best ideas, create the structure and the boundaries to protect those ideas from distractions and from getting carried away with the next shiny idea, because the key is to get the balance right, between freedom and accountability, between brainstorming and boundaries, between creativity and consistency. It looks a little different for each of us. So I can't tell you in the span of this podcast exactly what you need to make that happen, but I do know this, there is a just right approach that will work for you.

I also want you to know I have two openings to work with me, one-on-one in my signature framework, 12-week coaching program. Maybe just maybe one of them has your name on it. There's a link in the show notes to a free consult, that's the first step to working with me. If this is the year that you want to stop just thinking about it planning, preparing, perfecting, and procrastinating. If this is the year that you are really going to go from talking about it, to committing to doing it, let me help you. Let me help you make more progress than you ever believed was possible in just three months, and give you the tools to keep that momentum going long after we're done. All right, that's it for this hard-hitting, no BSing uncomfortable truth telling solo episode. We'll be back next week with another amazing guest, in the meantime, stay driven.