The Blessing, Curse & Cure of Ideas

As creatives, we often have a pot of ideas constantly boiling on the stove. It’s thrilling—and sometimes panicky—when we’re not sure which one to start with. We want to do them all at once. Many of us ping-pong between projects, or worse, never start at all, blocked by indecision or creative overwhelm. Over the years, I’ve learned that the most important thing is to pick any reasonable idea and run with it. Finish it, or at least make practical progress. Taking action not only gives our ideas a chance—it also relieves the quiet pain and guilt of leaving them unmade.

Among my artistic friends, I see the same pattern. We love discussing ideas, bouncing them off each other, dreaming big. But at some point, we have to bulk up our practical side and just get going. That lesson hit me in a simple, surprising way. When my oldest son started reading, his teachers asked him to read just twenty minutes a day. I watched him fly through books in no time. That small, consistent habit was an aha moment for me.

I had always been a binge-creator, working deep into the night—my most creative hours—but at the cost of sleep, nutrition, health, and relationships. Watching my son’s incremental progress made me realize that small, steady steps could carry ideas to completion without burning myself out. Little by little, I’ve turned fleeting melodies into finished songs, my love of words into poetry and a book manuscript, and my joy of observing details into drawings.

For me, this is the blessing, curse and  cure of ideas: they excite us, challenge us, and sometimes overwhelm us—but when we act on them, even in small ways, they become real. And in that process, we discover that the ideas themselves are happiest when honored, nurtured, and carried forward into the world. And we are happiest, too, when we engage with the process—whether a project fizzles, plods along, or suddenly takes flight.