There are many weeks where an idea randomly comes across my mind on what I want to cover for my weekly blog. In the moment, whether it’s walking the dog, driving home from work, or any other random moment, the idea is clear in my mind. It all makes sense and the vision of where I want to take this idea is clear as day.

Then comes the moment of taking the idea and putting it into words. Suddenly this clear picture in my mind becomes a jumbled mess on my Word document. As the idea unfolds, I start to push back on some of my initial thoughts. I start to question whether parts of my thought process make sense. Am I taking a holistic view? Am I being empathetic with my perspective? Am I providing an idea or concept with too much bias?

Then come the moments where I feel stuck trying to get my idea and perspective effectively into words others can understand and consider leveraging. I get through the initial draft only to read back through it and be confused why this clarity in my mind doesn’t easily make its way onto the document.

While the first iteration of my blog may seem like a jumbled mess of ideas that need to be tested, reworded, and challenged, this process is what makes an initial idea even better. It takes starting with the RUFF draft to start the journey of discovering how an initial idea can be pushed into something we’re proud to share with the world.

One of the best lessons I’ve learned from blogging each week has been the importance of understanding the journey of taking idea to creation to finish. We must allow the journey to evolve the initial idea so that we can build and not just settle for the initial thought. The same lesson learned can be used when we think about a project we encounter at work, a team we may have the opportunity to lead/coach, or a community project we’re jumping into helping solve. Allowing space for the idea to be planted, grow roots, and grow tall is critical to maximizing the idea. We need to start with something RUFF and use the journey to build ideas into its own unique greatness.

Too often in our mind we think the initial idea we come up with should immediately be great. And when we go from initial idea directly to finished product, we miss the opportunity for greatness to unfold. When we rush ideas and choose not to challenge them, get feedback and additional perspective, investigate our bias in them, and much more, we’re cheating ourselves from the greatness the idea can become.

In a world where our work, community, society, and everywhere else mandates instant gratification and production, we must remember to challenge ourselves to let the journey unfold of how an idea needs to evolve. We can’t rely on the search for instant gratification and success to create our unique greatness. We must embrace a journey that allows this idea to be planted and grow in a way that it’s sustainable, well vetted, and incorporates a variety of perspectives.

In a world that demands instant gratification, choose taking the time to embrace the journey that takes your ideas to greatness.

Take your step: the next idea that comes to mind you want to explore, take a moment to think about what your road ahead will look like with this idea. Ask yourself if you’re creating space to allow this idea to grow by challenging it, grabbing additional perspective, and so on. Push yourself to suppress the idea of instant gratification and invest time in pushing this idea to a new level.