Prune Your Ideas, Not Yourself: How to Focus Your Creative Energy for Maximum Impact
For those of you blessed and cursed with a wild imagination and the desire to bring ideas to fruition, let me ask you:
Do you feel pressure to take the majority of the ideas you conceive of, and birth them into reality?
Is the feeling of disappointment following you around because your list of potential projects far exceeds your list of finished ones?
Do you mistake unfinished ideas for unfulfilled potential?
Can you feel how heavy this unrealistic expectation is on your soul?
I’m not here to tell you how to prioritise which ideas to give your time and energy to or how to make peace with scrapping ideas that are no longer serving you.
Because I don't know you.
And even you don’t know which of your ideas will be winners and which ones won’t. Noone can predict that babe.
(Ps. from my experience, ‘success’ has less to do with the idea and more to do with the timing).
What I can leave you with is what I’ve learnt from pruning fruit trees. Yep, a gardening metaphor. Stick with me.
If a tree is not pruned at all and every shoot of new life is allowed to spark off in any direction, the number of branches increases but not the amount of fruit.
By removing the sick branches,
Cutting back the branches sprouting off at weak angels that will only snap if they bear fruit,
Along with the branches that are destined to cross paths with fellow branches rendering them both unproductive,
And most importantly chopping off the clusters of branches that explode out of the same limb like a chaotic firework,
This allows the tree to reorganise the flow of nutrients into something much more efficient and healthy.
It allows the tree to redirect energy that would be wasted on sickly sprouts and chanel it instead into strong branches that deliver more.
The tree cannot only yield more fruit that season but is able to fruit for many more seasons to come.
Ideas sprout like new branches. It’s a thrill to see all the directions our mind can take us, ideas leading to new ideas and so on forever. If only we could do it all!
But if we just add every spark of inspiration to our to-do list without discernment, our attention gets scattered into too many directions.
Ideas without pruning leads to reduced return on investment for our energy, and depletion of the creator.
You are the source, the seed, the soil, the nurturing womb, the one who does the hard work of delivering your creative babies into the world, season after season.
Your health is the priority here. Not the ideas.
Ideas are seasonal. You are forever.
Prune bitch.
How to Prune Your Ideas
Ideas are like branches: some are strong and productive, some are weak or sickly, and some will tangle or compete with other ideas. Here’s how to prune effectively so your energy flows to what really matters:
Remove the sickly ideas
These are ideas that don’t excite you anymore, feel forced, or bring more stress than joy.
Cut the weaker ideas
Ideas that are still raw or unfocused may need to wait until the timing is right. Trust the timing of the universe, don’t force it.
Trim ideas that compete or collide
If pursuing one idea will siphon energy from another that’s more promising, let the weaker one go.
Shape chaotic clusters
Ideas that explode in too many directions can scatter your attention. Choose the strongest branch in the cluster and let the rest go.
Prioritise by fruitfulness
Ask yourself: Which idea will give me the biggest return for my energy, joy, or growth?
