Most people go through life living a truly boring existence. While it’s kind of weird for a personal development blog – out of all places – to say this, it’s the truth. Generally, people lead dull lives, they work at dull jobs, they invest their time in dull activities, and then they die in a dull way. (Okay, so maybe the last thing mentioned isn’t something they can control. But you get what I mean.)

Why on earth would anybody willingly want to live so…dully? It’d be easy for me to throw up my hands and say “Who knows?” – but in reality, there are a lot of reasons people want to live their lives as an unspectacular chain of events.

The funny thing is that all of these dull people constantly try to convince everybody else to be dull just like them. All of the time. For some reason, people adore attempting to talk others into living life just as they are. Since most of the people doing these attempts at converting are naturally dull, it takes on an odd twist: Living life to your absolute fullest is encouraged when you’re little, then discouraged once you hit adulthood. Dull-ness needs to rule once you can think for yourself!

But… who wouldn’t want to be the exception to the rule? Who doesn’t want a fabulous life that’s different from everybody else, from the time you’re little to when you’re older than dirt?

You can’t do that! That’s the exception!

When you’re a little kid, you’re often encouraged by nearly everybody around you to think big and dream even bigger. Whatever you want to achieve in life, you can certainly do it. You just have to believe you can, set a goal that you’re going to obtain what you want, and get working. Not even the sky is  your limit unless you limit yourself.

But along the way, as you grew older, something strange began to happen. Those people who told you that success was within reach and something you could grasp started to tell you the complete opposite.

Suddenly those same people are putting your dreams down. For example, does the following sound familiar, in any way, shape, or form?

“Oh, sorry. Did I just hear you say you want to be a pop singer? That’s not possible. You can’t do that; you can’t be the next Madonna. She’s the exception to the rule, she just got lucky. You gotta pick something more down to earth. Stop longing to be a famous pop singer. Why aren’t you thinking about going to college like your friends? What are you going to do for a living? Seriously, you cannot make a decent living singing. How are you going support yourself?”

There are literally hundreds of variations on this same theme. You can’t be the next (famous person!) because (they got lucky! they’re the exception!) Better go try your hand at something else, right? Right…?

Instead of dreaming these amazing dreams for yourself and being filled with the passion that you can achieve anything, you’re slowly taught to conform. After all, everybody wants to live like everybody else. That’s just a given. Who wants to show off, be amazing, and rock at life if you can live like the Joneses next door? Duh.

Where does this “You can’t do that!” stuff come from?

If you’ve ever had to deal with the assault-like verbal grenades like the one I just mentioned above, you know what it feels like for people to totally demean your aspirations. It’s no fun at all.

Why would people who care about your future dish out advice like that? In my experience, the cause is linked to two main reasons:

• A lack of courage. If somebody is trying to give you advice but it sounds directly opposite of what you want to hear, consider that he/she might be speaking from a mindset of fear. People who want to see you succeed and want you to be happy might be drawing from their own feelings of being fearful of success when they offer you up terrible advice. Take what they say with a grain of salt. They might not necessarily mean to put a damper on your dreams, but they have their own limiting beliefs that are darkly shading the advice they give you.
• Fear of your success. What would your success mean to these people if you went out, achieved what you set your mind to, and shattered their expectations to pieces? Would they truly be happy for you? Would they sulk and have resentment when they see what kind of person you’ve become? Your success might force them to reevaluate the boring life they’re living; your success would be a threat to their stability.

As you can tell, its not necessarily that these people don’t want you to succeed, but they’re afraid of realizing what your success would mean to them. (Also remember that things such as limiting beliefs can also skew judgement when these people give you advice.)

Come on! Be like everybody else! (Or not?)

It’s sometimes extremely difficult to break away from what everybody else is saying and go down your own brilliant path, especially when the status quo is pressuring you to stay exactly the same. But unfortunately for you, if you begin believing that your dreams aren’t worth clinging onto and turning into your own reality, your life starts to become a pale copy of everybody else’s.

What is it to be like everybody else, anyways? Does it mean you eat a lot of foods that shouldn’t ever be put into your body? Does it mean you slowly chip away your time at a 9 to 5 job, wishing you had the freedom to do anything else with your time? Does it mean you spend years of your life paying (possibly tens of) thousands of dollars to go to college to graduate and find yourself in one of these terrifying jobs?

Let’s be honest – who really wants to live like everybody else? Deep down inside, everybody’s thinking they could be the exception to the rule. Everybody wants to be a somebody who’s fabulous.

Who doesn’t want to be the person who can make their entire living online? Who doesn’t want to be the person who has the healthiest diet for themselves? Who doesn’t want to be the person who’s an extremely talented songwriter and brilliant singer? We call these people the exceptions to the norm. These people are the the people who others look up to, but everybody discourages their friends from becoming. These people are the ones who followed their dreams and made something of themselves.

What do you do when people attempt to curtail your dreams and bring you back “down to earth?” I hope you ignore these people. I hope you ignore all of them. Seriously. Are you honestly going to start believing these people, that you’re dreaming too much or that your head is in the clouds? Why would you deny yourself your very own dreams? Why would you even want to pretend that your aspirations don’t exist?

Letting somebody else tell you that you can’t do something is effectively giving away your power to create your own life. It’s like you’re conceding defeat.

These people may give you reasons that your dreams won’t work. And for a while, you may believe these reasons and you may even make up more reasons that your dreams will never work out in your favor. But behind all of the excuses you imagine up, do you really know the script that’s running through your mind?

“Oh, you’re right, (other human being). I could never do something like that. What was I even thinking? Thank you for helping me realize that! I won’t bother trying any longer.”

Think about that whiney, loser-like script for a moment. Doesn’t it sound utterly ridiculous to you? Somebody says you can’t do something, and you tell them right back “Oh. You’re right! I can’t!” What ever happened to your power to create the life you’ve always dreamed of? Did you suddenly forget that only you have that power and it can’t be given away to anybody else? 

Don’t ever for a second doubt in yourself or in your dreams, no matter how big your dreams are or far off in the future you may be dreaming. If you don’t pursue your very own dreams, your life will wind up like everybody else’s. Dull. And pretty soon, you will try to convince everybody else to put away their power and to settle for a dull, dull life, just like yourself.

Be the Exception

The beauty and richness of human life isn’t found through mimicry of other people. It’s from transcending that little snag and becoming somebody who’s totally unique, so unique that their values, beliefs, and accomplishments can’t be classified as normal. It’s then that you become the exception.

Being the exception doesn’t necessarily mean you have to make astute, amazing scientific discoveries or change the pop music landscape for generations to come. It simply means you have to live true to yourself, without succumbing to other’s expectations of what you should become. It means going after your dreams in the face of everybody else, whether those dreams are super small or immensely huge.

It’s tough. Going after your desires is tough to do in a world that’s knocking on your door and reminding you 24/7 to be normal, reminding you that if you don’t act normal something is wrong with you. But you know what? The reward for being the exception is far greater than the reward for being identical to everyone else.

Nobody remembers the average people. Everybody remembers the exceptions. The average people don’t bother trying to touch other people’s lives with their skills, knowledge, and presence. The exceptional people reach out to other people and strive to make a difference in somebody else’s life, every single day.

Which of the two paths will you be choosing today? Will you become the exception?

There has never been a detailed article explaining how creative work takes shape. How do you go from having a brilliant idea to having a finished product you can share with the world? All creative work needs to take form somehow, after all.

In this post, I explain how I create my creative works, from a new blog post to an original piano piece to a speech I’m preparing to give. Hopefully by the time you’re finished reading this post, you have a stronger idea of how to express your own ideas more fully. As you can tell, this post is immensely long, but incredibly detailed.

I’m not giving you the magic wand so you can make your ideas miraculously appear better with no effort. I’m giving you the instruction manual on how to make your ideas work for you. Especially in the blogosphere, there’s a growing problem with people having absolutely brilliant ideas but a really terrible time expressing said ideas. I’ve seen people think up the most insanely original ideas ever that nobody else has even thought of before, but when push came to shove, they couldn’t fully express those ideas in a form that that makes any sense.

I’m determined to fix that problem in this post. In this post, I explain six simple steps you can use to go from having a fluffy idea to a tangible product. My goal for you is to be able to take any creative idea that you have and turn it into a reality.

These six steps are fairly simple. First, you choose an idea that you like. Next, you pick a medium for your idea and you create an outline, shelling out that idea in full. Then you compose a full rough copy drawn from your outline; afterwords, you edit that copy as much as needed until you hit perfection. Last, you put the finishing touches on your final copy and you share your finished product with the world!

So what are we waiting for? Let’s dive into the first step!

1. Think of an idea.

For any creative projects to seriously take shape, you need to start with a fresh idea.

Ideas can come from anywhere. They can be suggested to you by other people. You can go around looking at other people’s various works, and think about what’s missing from their products. What didn’t other people create yet that you can present? What new flavor can you add to the mix? Ideas also can be found via inspiration, like taking a walk and simply thinking about various topics. (This is one of my personal favorite ways to create ideas for future blog posts.)

You’ll probably get lots of really bad ideas, but a couple of ideas you come up with will be golden. Take note of those golden ideas; those ideas are the ones you want to expand on.

I recently wrote on this blog about how to create brilliant ideas. You can read that post if you’re having a bit of trouble at this stage.

If you’re still having trouble creating ideas, just ask yourself these questions: What do you want to share with the world? If you were given a platform and could speak to a million people, how would you creatively express yourself? What would you want to say to all of them?

2. Pick a medium for your idea.

So you’ve come up with your amazing idea that’s going to change mankind. Fabulous! Now what do you do?

The next two steps require you to start fleshing out your idea. Now is the time you figure out what kind of medium you want your idea to reside in, and what kind of structure your idea is going to have. First, let’s discuss the aspect of the medium for your message:

A medium is a simply the format your idea is expressed in. For example, if you’re a personal development guru and you want to speak about productivity, what kind of format are you going to put your idea in? Are you going to write a detailed blog entry? Do you want to create a short eBook? Do you want to talk through your topic in a cleverly produced podcast?

Picking a medium can be tough. If you pick the wrong medium, it can totally backfire on you and cause your message to appear not as strong. If writing an eBook might be stretching out your idea way too thin, writing a simple blog entry could possibly be a much better fit. Speaking about a detailed topic through a video might leave the viewers confused if there are too many technical points; in this case, an organized eBook would work so much better. An uplifting story told through a blog post might not have the same emotional impact as if you recorded a 10 minute podcast detailing the trials and tribulations of the story.

In any case, no matter what your idea is, the goal is to choose the best medium for your message, as Steve Pavlina would say. Find something that creates a great balance between what you have to say and what format you want to use to express what you say. Overall, your chosen medium should reflect the content of your message.

3. Create a basic outline.

With your medium now chosen, it’s time to sketch out your idea in an easy outline form.

The purpose of the outline is to give your idea a clearer shape. You want to be able to take the outline you create and then used that to chisel out a rough draft of your creative work. If you skip directly from Step 2 to Step 4, the final form of your idea might not be as coherent and clearly expressed as you’d like it to be.

Outlines can come in all shapes and sizes, so use what works best for you. Some people like to create a simple bulleted list of all of their main points; I’m a big fan of this. To create my outline of this article, I used a pencil and a sheet of computer paper. I envisioned this article in my mind and spoke the entire article out loud, imagining that I was giving a podcast of this topic to an audience from ProBlogger. As I hit a main point, I would write that in with a 1.), 2.), and so on. From there, as I would detail each numbered point, I would write in more bullets and quick words and phrases that describe those main points. By the time I was done speaking, I created a terrific outline that could guide me through writing this entire post.

If you need to do any research for your idea, now is the time you’d research what you need. You want to make sure that when you write your rough copy, you’re able to express yourself with what you mean about 95% of the time. It’s okay if your rough copy is  not absolutely clear the first time around, but you want to be able to hit near clarity. A strong outline will help you.

At the very least, your outline needs to have the main aspects of your original idea. For example, if you’re preparing to give a speech, your outline needs to at least have the main points of what you’re going to be talking about, along with all of the sub-points. Then after you get the basics of your outline written out, the next step is to write down any examples, phrases, and whatever else you want to be including in your message. You do this so you don’t accidentally forget anything important.

I know it’s a bit weird to create your outline after you pick your medium, but to me it makes perfect sense: An outline you prepare for a speech will be different than if you’re creating an outline to compose a symphony, and both of those will be totally different than if you’re creating an outline for an eBook. The outline you’re going to be writing will reflect what kind of medium you’ve chosen.

4. Write your rough copy.

So you thought up an idea. You picked the perfect medium for your message, and you created your excellent outline. The next step is to express yourself into your medium while following your outline.

If you’re writing a new blog entry, write out your entire blog post. If you’re writing an eBook, do the same thing, only in smaller chunks. If you’re composing a song, it’s time to compose that entire song. If you’re preparing to give a speech, go to the mirror along with your outline and start speaking!

Remember to use your outline! Stick to your outline as close as possible. Of course, while you’re writing, there’s a good chance that a few of the points you made in your outline just won’t make the final cut. That’s okay. The idea of the outline is to give you a basic structure that you can use write from; stick to that structure. Your outline is what’s going to give your work a cohesive, whole feeling when you’re done writing. Also, remember to use your most important ideas from your outline in this rough copy – don’t leave anything important out!

While creating your rough copy, try to get as close to perfection as you can and make your ideas as presentable as possible. There are a couple of reasons for this. One, it’s going to make the editing process so much easier when you go back to edit after you’ve finished. Two, you’re going to feel as if you’re creating something worthwhile. Instead of kind of expanding on a lot of little ideas, you’re going to be working on an entire creative work.

5. Go back and edit what you’ve created.

So now that you have finished an almost complete work, it’s time to go back and edit what you’ve done so far.

Editing, if done correctly, will actually take you a lot longer than you probably are thinking. You’re going to be looking out for a lot of things while editing. Here are some questions you can ask yourself during the editing process:

• Do your words and phrases make sense? A lot of times, you’ll write or say something that you think will sound amazing, but in reality it simply doesn’t. For writers, check to see that you have your basic grammar intact and that you chose appropriate, colorful words to describe what you’re speaking about.
• Does the order and organization of your work make sense? Make sure you’re writing, explaining, or composing everything in a very clear, very concise way. Don’t leave anything up to chance. If you’re not sure that you’re clear enough, you probably aren’t. Ask around if you’re worried. The last thing you want is to leave somebody bewildered after reading or listening to what you have to present.
• Did you do your very best? Is what you’re going to present to the world the very best you have to offer? This may seem like the ultimate silly question to ask when you’re in an editing spree, but you want what you have to say to be totally you. You want it to be a work of creative self-expression, an extension of yourself. If what you’ve composed in your rough copy isn’t your very best, go back and change it up. Make sure what you have to say is the very best of what you have to offer.

There’s a bit of leeway after you get to this step – you might find yourself bouncing between multiple rough copies and editing them all at once. That’s totally okay. Occasionally if you’re doing something that’s very complicated, you can’t help but compose multiple copies.

Be ruthless with yourself. Editing is a tough skill to master, but it’s completely worth it in the long run. Your work will appear much more thoughtful, organized, and impressive if you take the time to trim the fat off of your creative works.

Don’t rush this step, either. Especially if you’re created something that’s long, it’s going to feel like an eternity to edit everything. That’s just to be expected. Slow yourself down, take everything word by word, note by note. You want something that’s your best; you want something that’s perfect.

6. Share your finished project!

You’re done editing. Now is the time to read, hear, or see what you’ve created one last time before you begin sharing it with other people. Go back to the questions I asked above in the editing section and ask yourself those questions again for the final time.

Make sure that what you’ve created is truly the very best of what you can offer.

Creative work needs to be shared, right? Now is the fun part – now you get to share what you’ve done with everybody else! (Okay, so at least it’s the most fun part for me!) Speak that speech in front of everybody. Create a video of your brand new song and share it with the world. Publish that new blog post and get it out there! Pass your work around to your family and friends, promote your work on forums, get people to notice what you’ve done. Believe in what you’ve created, you worked hard!

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To create an awesome blog post – every single time – takes practice. But you need to have some strong basics to start from. I hope this post will truly help you when creating any kind of creative work.

So… what are you waiting for? Why aren’t you off creating something new today? Come on, get to it Remember to start at Step 1!