Understanding Our Goals, Developing a Process, and Trusting the Journey

“A company that’s likely to make a substantial change in the status quo … is thinking about a problem or a customer need in a way you’ve never heard before, but which makes perfect sense once you hear it."

—Tony Fadell, Build

Why: Understand Our Goal for Ideation

Ideation is a muscle that we must train, similar to how we exercise our bodies to become stronger and healthier. Good ideas don’t simply come out of the blue or happen by chance. They are a result of consistent effort and practice. By generating multiple ideas and discerning whether they are good or bad, we can identify the necessary features for successful ideas and refine our ideation skills. This continuous exercise helps us build a strong foundation for innovation and creativity, enabling us to tackle challenges, seize opportunities with confidence, and frame solutions to problems in creative ways.

How: Develop a Process for Ideation

Be an Active Thinker

Being an active thinker means taking control of our thought processes and engaging in the deliberate generation of new ideas. Instead of just passively receiving ideas and content from others, we must strive to think critically and create our own ideas. For me, this means a balanced approach of consuming content (such as non-fiction books, podcasts, and YouTube videos) and dedicating time for reflection. I take some time to think about what I’ve learned and—although not as often as I’d like—write about my thoughts. This practice has proven to be beneficial for connecting the dots in my brain and my digital second brain, enhancing my creative output.

Set Aside Time for Thinking

Carve out time in our schedule to focus on thinking about projects, goals, and problems we’re facing, and try to come up with innovative solutions. For me, this often takes the form of workouts, daily walks, and even showers. These moments of solitude allow the mind to wander and generate creative insights. Occasionally, I block time on my calendar to delve deeper into an idea with just me and a whiteboard, providing an opportunity to visually explore and structure my thoughts.

Leverage Tools like ChatGPT

Utilize tools like ChatGPT to act as our digital thinking buddy and sounding board for bouncing ideas off. I’ve been doing this since December 2022, and it’s been a game-changer in my life. I usually set the topic I want to discuss, and let the conversation flow, digging deeper into specific points, asking “what if” questions, and exploring new angles. This AI-driven conversation helps me refine my thoughts, uncover hidden connections, and push my ideas further.

In my opinion, keyword-based search tools like Google are good for things you know you don’t know and thus deliberately search for them. Other tools like Wikipedia improve on this, as they provide the possibility to jump around connected concepts, but are limited by the luck you have in clicking the right combination of links to land on something you didn’t know you needed to know. Now, tools like ChatGPT are great for the things you don’t know you don’t know. It can serendipitously make connections for you and expand your perspective on whatever you are working on.

Find Like-Minded (but complementary) Friends and Mentors

Seek out friends who share our passion for ideation training and can complement our thinking process. This collaborative approach can lead to fresh perspectives and help refine our ideas. For instance, a friend and I had weekly chats to discuss his various “startup ideas of the day” or, sometimes, my “startup idea of the month.”

Additionally, finding mentors who are willing to guide us through the ideation phase and, more importantly, the execution can be invaluable. Mentors bring a wealth of experience to the table and can provide insights that help us avoid pitfalls and capitalize on opportunities.

What: Trust the Process and Forget About the Goal

Start Acting on Good Ideas

Over time, our ideation training will bear fruit, and we’ll start generating good ideas. It took my friends and I about eight months to finally settle on a worthy startup idea. When you find a promising idea, invest in it. This will initially take the form time and effort, eventually adding money into the mixture. For many of us, this means working longer days to meet job expectations while experimenting with the idea that excites us. This is my plan for the summer. I know it will mean working 10 to 12 hours a day, 6 to 7 days a week. It won’t be easy, but most accomplished people have had their fair share of hard work, and I can’t expect things to be easy for me for no reason. Embrace the challenge, knowing that the pursuit of a great idea can be a life-changing experience.

Leverage Your Mentors

Rely on our mentors to maximize learning while minimizing setbacks. Mentors are an exceptional source of vicarious learning and can provide valuable guidance as we act on our ideas. Their experience and wisdom can help us navigate the complexities of execution, make better decisions, and learn from their successes and failures. By leveraging the knowledge of our mentors, we can accelerate your progress, overcome obstacles, and ultimately bring our ideas to life more efficiently and effectively.

It’s important to keep in mind that ideation is a continuous process, and success won’t come overnight. So, instead of focusing solely on the end goal, it’s best to trust the journey. Dedicate time and effort to ideation training, and gradually build a strong foundation for creativity and problem-solving. With time, we’ll hopefully become adept at thinking about problems or customer needs in ways others have never heard before, but which make perfect sense once they hear them.

Image by vectorjuice on Freepik.