There’s Always A Better Idea

You can sense it when you’re on the trail, you’re close, you’re within reaching distance.

You’ve got something, but it’s not fully developed, it’s not complete, it’s not good enough.

You know that you know this. You know that there’s another layer above that elevates the idea, a pièce de résistance, a cherry on top, something that ties the whole thing together and makes it click. 

You just don’t know what it is exactly. 

You try to climb through the sludge of your own mind, flapping about from side to side, trying to connect the dots and bridge the gap.

You’re racking your brain, trying too hard, gobsmacked with a thousand-yard stare and grinding your teeth, before someone breaks your train of thought by asking if you want to grab a coffee. 

Your cortisol levels are rising, you’re getting more and more frustrated, it’s so close. 

Like fumbling for a light switch in the dark of your hallway. Or grasping for your pen deep in your rucksack.

Where the hell is it?

Some days the neurons are firing, some days less so (the amount of sleep the night before seems to be a big factor).

The playful child in me is a dumb brat who refuses to comply with my demands.

I’m thinking too literally, rather than laterally. It’s taken a lifetime of conditioning to be this way; to not be silly, to be ‘professional’, to take things seriously, to be smart, to be accurate, to be right.

In these last 6 weeks I’ve truly realised I need to unlearn my previous mode of being.

It’s the fear that gets you, you feel pressured to come up with a brand new idea that is not only accepted but celebrated. However in reality you’re just putting pieces of a puzzle together that many people before you have completed in the past, albeit with a different image printed on top.

The sparks which help inspire you are hiding everywhere. They lurk within a sentence somebody says, within a leaflet at the entrance of a pub, within the structure of another advert, or a combination of words your partner writes down that you both were not paying attention to.

These sparks are fleeting moments. I’ve learnt now to always write them down so they don’t get away from you and back into the ether. Grasp them tight but give them room to breathe.  To simmer down and settle.

Coming up with an idea is hard. Coming up with a good idea is even harder. Much harder than it looks (even with a growing armoury of creative techniques). 

You look at great ads of the past, they’re so simple but hit just right. 

Before starting this course, I had a hope you could just produce a good idea through blagging it. Those ads you’re bombarded with growing up, you think to yourself “I could do that”. 

Spew out a kooky wayward idea, insert cultural reference here, a pun there. Bosh. 

Orange man-baby sauntering about, sneaking up to a bloke and slapping him in the face, alongside the strapline, “you know when you’ve been tangoed”. 

How hard could that be? 

Hard.

Since the start of this course I’ve realised how wrong I was, but with the right thinking, it’s definitely doable. I think.