Try Something New
My last podcast episodes: Be a Doer and Focus on the Work sparked my first listener question!
What best practices do you have for a person wanting to try something new and stuck in the research phase of a project?
The Research Phase. You can always tell my interests or opportunities based on what I am reading. Literally everything from running to recipes, I've read several books on subjects in which I need more information. I think there needs to be a balance between books and articles. Books go in detail and you can find varying opinions. The thing about books is depending on the industry, the information can grow outdated. MagazInes and online articles will give you the latest and greatest information. I love a balance of both. I would like to caution: you cannot live in the research phase forever. You have to start DOING things…which brings me to
Experiment. The example I gave about this before is with this podcast. I have listened to many podcasts. I have done research about podcasting. I understand conceptually what I want to achieve via a podcast platform, but until I actually start podcasting, I will have no idea what I’m really doing. Learning through experimenting is vital. You can learn from mistakes you don’t want to make again. I’ve also learned from feedback. Just in the first 4 episodes, I’ve received a lot of feedback that make my podcasts better. Feedback, brings be to my final point:
Seek counsel/mentorship. Is there someone excelling at what you are looking to do? Ask for help. People really do love helping people. One of my favorites thoughts around this is from The Alchemist “And when you want something, the universe conspires in helping you achieve it”. When you seek, help, people will help you in ways you never imagined. When I started the 112 books challenge, not only did I get over 300 book titles, I got actual books to read too. To this day, people still give me titles. When I said I wanted to be serious about my writing, I had friends help me with my wevsite and the pdocast. All because they wanted to see me be successful.
