Pulling the trigger
May 14th, 2008
How many times have you thought, “Wow… what a great idea, I must put that on my to-do list?” but have never followed through? I wrote a while back about maintaining focus and I guess this ties in a little bit and definitely follows on, this is the topic of “Pulling the trigger”.
After putting on The Highland Fling 2008 - The browser and beyond, I knew that I had to write a post about how wonderful the day was and how much it meant to me but I also knew I wanted to write something other than a carbon copy of what people were expecting.
Back in 2006 when I had the concept for doing the conference it scared the crap out of me, it was something that I had never done before, it was outside fo my comfort zone but I still went ahead and did it. I pulled the trigger!
Many times since I started working for myself I have had ideas rush past me and I have never acted upon them, I didn’t pull the trigger, I didn’t reap the benefits from pulling the trigger either. Although I don’t regret much in my life I do regret not having acted on a lot that has been on my mind, that said there is still a lot there which I do plan on acting on.
I was once told that an idea means nothing unless it has been put on paper, recorded in some shape or form otherwise it will be forgotten. Very wise words indeed. I envy designers and their fascinating mood boards, I miss the frenzy of a brainstorm in an agency environment and I wish I kept a digital scrap book to act as my idea sponge. I think it is really important to find a way of storing these waves of ideas that rush over us, a net for catching all the cool thoughts we have. I’d maintain a wiki but they bore me and to be honest I find them confusing as they grow arms and legs and then before you know it they have turned into a monster.
The Highland Fling was set up to help inspire people, to bring together like minded people and help them forge new ideas, relationships and plans for moving forward in what they do every day. I have encountered a wide variety of hurdles in doing the event but I have always done my best to get over them and move on. To do this I had to decide on what I wanted to do about it and pull the trigger!
Pulling the trigger is a final act, once you’ve done it you have commited (hopefully not an act of homicide), you’ve made a final decision, you’ve said to yourself that you are going to do something and you’ve crossed the line, there should be no turning back.
Perhaps this article is not really my follow up to the conference, I’ve been a very busy man over the past three years and I’m wondering if this is an introspective look at where and when I pull the trigger.
To be honest I think I have using a sub machine gun of late, I organised The Highland Fling whilst working on contract and dealing with my own clients at night, having house rennovations done and to top it all off I got married 3 weeks ago on Friday and I’m now down in London contracting.
Pulling the trigger? I think I just fired a cannon!
One thing that I’ve realised of late is one of the reasons I haven’t been blogging much, I fell into a trap where I felt I should be writing about certain things instead of just being myself. I presented myself with a mental hurdle which prevented me from writing about whatever came into my mind, free thoughts for the public.
I’m glad I’m over that hurdle now and look forward to pulling the trigger on a more regular basis.
Take care folks…
Nils Geylen Author Comment
May 19th, 2008
I for one like you re-entry into blogging and think your last couple posts had deep truth and value to them.
As for documenting our ideas, perhaps the problem is we want to do so much. If you like drawing, a sketchbook is all you need, writing only takes a notebook or a Google Docs account. But keeping track of everything that fascinates us, from bookmarking stuff to using Twitter as a mind dump, often fragments our thoughts even more I feel.
I wish it didn’t, but to me it often leads to less focus, not more. And blogging in its turn suffers from that, in quite a recognizable way to what you experienced.
Take care too, enjoy your marriage - above all things - and keep posting. You’re doing fine!
Alan Author Comment
May 22nd, 2008
Hi Nils
When we live in an information age like we do it is very hard to filter out the crap and absorb the good.
A life skill that is becoming more and more essential is information processing (not that it has ever been un-important) as we are bombarded with information everywhere we look.
We have screens that tell us stuff, adverts that tell us garbage, media and governments that tell us lies in order for us to behave in certain ways.
We have big brother and a whole bunch of other exposure to stuff that humans never had before.
It can’t last forever though, increased media exposure to world events helps fuel the fire and in my opinion causes a lot more problems than it solves.
Without stepping into a political rant, I think we are on the same page and know where we are both coming from