It’s really important to think conceptually about what you want from the world.
Unless you have deep insights and grand plans you’ll tend to end up spending your energy indiscriminately. Head down in the weeds getting things done without a plan. Or going around in circles.
But this is only ever half the battle…
You also need to connect your big ideas to everyday reality and keep them tethered there. Or they’ll float away like dandelion puffs on the wind.
And the best idea — no matter how beautiful and potentially important — is worthless if it never gets put into action. It never gets to influence reality in any way.
It’s this issue of maintaining a concrete and consistent connection between the open sky and the firm ground that’s where most people fall short.
I’ve got to put my hand up and confess that I struggle here big time too.
Apart from the occasional lucky break, the only way I have success is when I deliberately create hard and fast rules for operationalising my insights.
I think about what it really means in practice to turn an abstract concept into something specific that I actually do. And not just do once — but repeatedly and consistently.
No ifs. No buts. No doubt about it. No chance of lying to myself.
Either I did the action correctly or I didn’t. No uncertainty. And no playing games with yourself to wriggle out of things.
The final key part of this is the need to keep it simple.
Boil things down to the core elements — and make them something that’s achievable and manageable in the long-term.
This requires discipline and restraint.
You’ll inevitably lose some of the big insight when you translate it to something simple and practical. Partly because you’re going from concepts that can exist in ‘perfect’ form to the necessarily messy reality. But also because you’re making them manageable and executable by you in your current imperfect and time-pressed state.
Don’t use this as an excuse to do a low quality job. Hold yourself to producing something powerful and fit for purpose.
But don’t stress about getting everything in there. As long as you’ve chosen something that captures the core insight and delivers a positive result then you’ve done your job.
Quick example:
Your insight might be that relationships are one of the most valuable things in life. So you decide you want to improve them.
One simple way to operationalise this: text one friend every day during your lunch break.
Another: set aside 10 minutes every evening to simply talk to your partner — no distractions allowed.
Will either of these things produce transformative change overnight? Of course not.
But they’re simple and doable. And you know straight away if you’ve failed to do them.
A setup like this brings peace — and easy, effective action. It turns crazy big ideas into practical habits that happen without effort.
There’s immense power here when you can tie the big concepts down to corresponding regular practical actions. So I thoroughly recommend you take this approach if you want to reap the rewards from your most powerful insights.
Yes, get clear on the concepts that matter first. But then you must operationalize. That’s when things get done.