This is a guest post from Tom Morkes, a great instigator of passionate work.

The Reason

There is a reason you’re here.

Not just in the philosophical sense of your purpose for living, but because you’re reading this article, right here, right now.

It means you want something.

It means there is something missing or incomplete, a gap between where you are right now and where you want to be.

My guess is you want desperately to close this gap.

Deep in your gut, there is a desire to design and fashion something beautiful, unique and remarkable, to create the worthwhile project you’ve always dreamed of creating, and to build the empire you know you can build.

You’re not the only person who wants this; the rest of the world wants it too.

And what the world wants – and what you need – is for you to instigate your life’s work.

Inadvisable Action

Instigate: \ˈin(t)-stə-ˌgāt\

“To bring about or initiate an action or event. To urge on to some drastic or inadvisable action.”

Creating something from scratch; starting something without permission; testing, changing, breaking, exploring, initiating and building without a boss telling you what to do and how to do it.

This is instigating.

Instigating is about taking the lead, moving into the unknown, and drawing your own map.

It’s about doing something scary and uncertain; something that could end in failure.

Instigating is about doing the unreasonable and creating the inadvisable.

“No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness.”  ~Aristotle

Your Life’s Work

Your life’s work is the creative, beautiful, unique, and remarkable things you bring into existence throughout the course of your life.

It can be one project or 100.

It can be a movement, a book, blog, business, or something else entirely (or all of the above).

Your life’s work is whatever you create that has your energy, your passion, your character and your emotion deeply infused into it.

And it matters because your idea – and bringing that idea to life – matters.

The Stages of Instigating

You might be thinking you need to be a natural born leader, or a slightly masochistic entrepreneur, or a fearless, confident, creative genius to instigate successfully.

This isn’t true.

There are countless examples of regular, everyday people doing extraordinary, seemingly impossible things.

They all follow the same principle and the same pattern; they follow the steps that I lay out below.

Note: Nothing here is a groundbreaking secret.

There’s nothing original when it comes to the steps we must take to instigate our life’s work.

Originality isn’t the point – the point is about successfully creating something that is deeply important to you (and to us).

What I write here is simple, but it’s not necessarily easy (and it’s most certainly unreasonable).

Stage 1) Start

The first stage of instigating is the movement from idea to action.

We all have great ideas.  What we lack is great execution.

Starting means putting that ephemeral idea into words on paper; it means making the immaterial tangible; it means moving from the realm of fantasy to reality.

Starting is everything we do up until we have the words on paper and the intention in our hearts to bring it to life.

Starting takes vision and guts.

 “If there’s no one starting stuff, then where does innovation come from?” ~Poke the Box

Stage 2) Finish

The second stage of instigating is everything that follows that first actionable step to the completed product.

Many people would believe there should be an interim step here; something between starting and finishing.  But in reality, as soon as we have our ideas on paper, the next thing we MUST do is finish.

When the words are on that piece of paper in front of you, now you’re in the finishing stage. This can take days, weeks or even years.

Your job is to make sure you finish, no matter what.

You can ensure you finish by following certain actionable steps, and predicting possible failure in advance so your project is prepared for the worst.

Finishing takes discipline and grit.

“It’s not the writing part that’s hard. What’s hard is sitting down to write.” ~The War of Art

Stage 3) Ship

The third stage of instigating is shipping the product to market.

This is very much different than finishing.

Finishing means the .pdf is saved on your hard drive; shipping is the final copy for sale on Amazon. Finishing means putting the branding on the box; shipping means fulfilling the order. Finishing means there’s a calendar date set for the meet-up; shipping means you’ve gone door to door to shape the political landscape.

The way we ship only changes depending on the product or project we’re creating.  The end result of shipping is that a stranger can interact with what we produce.

“There is only one way to find out if your product is good, and that is to start selling it.” ~The Reluctant Entrepreneur

The Art of Instigating

Start, finish, and ship.

That’s it.

That’s all you have to do to bring your project to life.

But, deep down, you already knew that didn’t you?

So what is stopping you from turning your dreams into reality?  Where are you in the stages of instigating?

Have you put your idea on paper but not taken action?  Then take action!

Have you taken action, developed your project, but stopped partway through?  Pick it up and finish it!

Have you finished your book, movie, blog, or product?  Then start selling it!

But how?

Is that the question you just asked yourself?

If this question – how – is your sticking point, it will cripple you.

Why?  Because, if you’re building something worthwhile, if you’re creating something personal, unique, and remarkable, then there is no blueprint, no map to follow, no guidebook that will take you from start to finish effortlessly.

Drawing your own map goes hand in hand with instigating your life’s work.

If you’re instigating your life’s work, you will never know exactly how to do it (nor will anyone else).

So stop worrying and start creating.

Create your worthwhile project; build your empire; instigate your life’s work.

Don’t wait – start before you’re ready.

And yes, it’s unreasonable.

That’s the point.

 

About the Author: Tom writes about instigating, jumping out of helicopters, and creating your life’s work at tommorkes.com.  He is the author of The Art of Instigating and publishes The Resistance Broadcast, a newsletter that comes out 3 times a week to help you fight your internal creative battles.   Tom is an Iraq War veteran and has lead troops in combat.  During his years of active duty military service, Tom has learned no more important lesson than this: people need you to instigate.  Every team is waiting for someone to take point, to lead, to be the first to jump out of the helicopter.  They’re waiting.  Are you ready?

 

 

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