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Embrace your bad ideas
Most great ideas start with a clumsy first step
Hey there —
We've all heard the phrase, "There are no bad ideas…" inserted into an inspirational post or as the opening rallying cry of a group brainstorming session.
Chances are, you've even said it yourself.
The second half of this phrase usually depends on who's speaking.
"…just poorly executed ones." (Your boss.)
"…just bad decisions." (Your therapist.)
"…only great ideas that go horribly wrong." (You, to your therapist.)
But who says bad ideas are so bad anyway?
Rather than trying to avoid the label altogether, we can learn to view imperfection as an asset and embrace our bad ideas.
After all, our best ideas have to start somewhere, right?
“Sure,” you might think. “So toss the bad ideas and focus on the good ones.”
But if your only aim is to identify “bad” ideas as quickly as possible, trash them, and move on…you might miss out on something great.
Consider the Pixar movie, UP.
The sweet story of a widower in a floating house trying to fulfill his promise to his beloved wife? 🏠
Yup. Only, it actually started as a tale of two princes in a floating city on an alien planet. 👽
Pete Docter, the film’s director, notes that when the team realized the original idea wasn’t working, it inspired the idea of a floating house.
The team then needed a logical reason for the house to be airborne — it’s attached to a bunch of helium balloons — which further led to questions like:
“Why didn’t this guy just take the train?” “Who is he?” “Why is he doing this?” and “Where is he going?”
And all those questions led to the backstory montage that had us sobbing into our popcorn.
Without that first “bad” idea, you wouldn’t have the incredible movie we all love. (And that would go on to become one of only three animated films to ever be nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards.)
Bad ideas aren’t just part of the process. They are the process.
So next time you’re staring at a blank page, or brainstorming ideas for your YouTube channel, give yourself one rule: Your delete button no longer exists.
That means…
📝 Write every idea down. Even if you think it’s lame or unoriginal. Even if it means getting out of bed when you’re almost asleep. (Creative graveyards are filled with the ghosts of ideas that disappeared after someone thought, “I’ll remember it in the morning.”)
💩 Embrace the shitty first draft. You may need to write five pages of crap before you land on that one line that makes everything fall into place. Keep going. Editing comes later.
There’s a whole world of possibilities contained within your most mediocre first attempts. Acting on your ideas is all you have to worry about in the beginning because that’s how you’ll discover if an idea is any “good.”
Ultimately, it’s your bad ideas that will lead to your best work. Because when you look back on what you’ve created, the “bad” ideas that led you here won’t seem so bad after all.
Have you ever wished you could ask Matt and the Slow Growth team all your burning creative, freelance, and self-development questions?
Well, get ready to happy dance, because…the time has come. 💃
We’re excited to announce we’ll be adding a monthly ‘Ask Slow Growth!’ feature to future Snail Mail newsletters!
And to help us get started, we need you to hit us up with your questions related to the Slow Growth space: habits, productivity, minimalism, YouTube, fitness, finances…get your nerd on!
If your question is chosen, we’ll send you an answer via email, as well as feature it in an upcoming edition of Snail Mail. 🙌
We can’t wait to hear from you!
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