Pick one. You can either (1) defend your idea to everyone you encounter, or you can (2) act on your idea. Unless you’re made of minutes, you probably won’t have enough time or energy to do both.
We all have jobs, families, and responsibilities. And chances are your dream has to come in between all those things. You can’t drop the ball in those areas in order to follow your dream.
That means your time is limited. You don’t have enough time or energy to act and defend those actions. You have to choose one.
It’s too easy to get bogged down in defending our actions instead of actually acting. That’s why I frankly prefer to keep silent sometimes. I don’t even tell people what I’m up to so I don’t have to defend it. I call it being secretly awesome.
Last year I started a new business to help bloggers. It’s a stock photo site that gives bloggers unlimited photos for a small monthly fee. It was a genius idea that I knew many of my friends would be interested in. I was so eager to share the idea with everyone I knew.
But I help my tongue. I held my tongue because of the name I was going to give to this venture. I planned to call it Mopho (pronounced mofo). If you’re familiar with the word mofo, you’ll know it has a rather vulgar connotation. And since I worked in the church world, I knew many people would advise me against the name. I knew I’d be defending the idea more than I actually got to work on the project.
You see; Mopho wasn’t necessarily for the church world. It was for bloggers. Mopho would be a memorable name for a valuable service. I was settled on the idea. So I chose to keep it quiet. I chose to be secretly awesome as I devised, designed, and developed the idea.
I didn’t let many people in on the idea until it was ready to be seen. And at that point, it was too late for a name change. So I got only a fraction of the criticism I would have heard if I’d revealed the name sooner. (I still get the occasional, indignant email from church folks.)
The truth is, I don’t need people’s permission to act on my ideas. I don’t need a thumbs-up before I can act on the dream in my head. But when I spend all my time defending my ideas to other people, I put myself in a position of asking permission from those people. The only permission you need to follow your dream is from the One who put it in your heart in the first place. And if He put it there, He’s given you permission to pursue it.