“I Don’t Have the Right Online Course Idea Yet!”  Ever heard yourself say this?

If so, this post is for you……

Every day I hear people say to me things like ‘I’m not creating any courses yet because I’m just waiting until I figure out what my topic should be’; or ‘I’m going to wait until the right idea comes to me’.

It’s as if they think that one day this magical epiphany is just going to bestow upon them and they will know precisely what they are going to do and how to do it.

This breaks my heart; because epiphanies are lies.

It’s like people look around them and think that everybody else just fell out of the womb knowing exactly what they were going to do with their lives.  Like every successful business just started exactly the way it is the day that it launched.

The fact is, people find themselves and their online course topics through an evolutionary process of constant action and discovery. They taste a little bit of topic A and it leads them onto topic B, and so their path continues until they eventually make a concoction that suits them perfectly.  In short, the course idea does not miraculously appear in its perfect form – it must be discovered with imperfect action.

It can be easy to feel like ‘everyone else has got their stuff together’, but the truth is, even those with absolutely explicit plans have to step forward with uncertainty and improvisation, as we cannot predict the future.  Businesses, ideas, campaigns, products, services, people, the market and everything we have today, could be different tomorrow.  

We live in a world of constant change and if what we offer does not change with it, we’ll be hanging out with the Fail-saurus-rex pretty quickly.  

EVERYTHING is ever-evolving.  There is absolutely no such thing as an instantaneous perfect idea or success.  

No creature is born in it’s ‘adult’ form.  We must bust unceremoniously out of our embryonic protection, depend on others for survival for a little while, figure out how to communicate, stay alive; we stumble and bumble our way through figuring out how to walk and hold things and eventually (sort of) find our place in the world – and with every passing moment we change, adapt and alter a little more.

Everything has to be trialed, tested, tweaked, iterated and improved as it passes through the passage of time.  

So PLEASE don’t beat yourself up or hold your great self back from the world because you don’t know what the view is like over the hill.  That is like beating up a baby for not knowing what it wants to be when it’s grown up.  Harsh, but true.

Are you waiting for an epiphany, or some magical gift from the Universe to come and save you? If so, you will have a long and futile wait.

I hate to tell you, but the epiphany isn’t coming to change your life.

No magical thought will mysteriously give you all the answers. That hope is worse than an illusion – it’s a bold-faced lie!

Edison didn’t just invent the light bulb.

Jobs didn’t just build a MAC computer.

Every single great idea, every great business, every brilliant life is the result of years of vision, dedication, hard work, and progressive evolution. Your skills are a synthesis of all that you’ve done with your whole life.

Successful entrepreneurs don’t get that way by just setting up a bank account, and BOOM! They are running a successful company. That does not happen.

If you intend to start creating courses or building an education-based business, you can’t afford to sit there, waiting for ‘your thing’ to be revealed.

The perfect idea, the perfect situation, the perfect solution? They don’t exist!

Do something. That is the ONLY way to find your ‘thing’.  Every great creation has a point of conception, and then it evolves.

‘Nothing’ cannot evolve; but ‘something’, however tiny, most definitely can.

Do something – anything!

Only then will you have any experiences, feelings or data to base your next step from.  

You need to take step 1 before you can collect the key that will open the door of step 2.  

You’ll learn what works and what doesn’t. From that first bold step, you’ll gain new competencies and knowledge, enabling you to improve your plan – until you get it right!

Too many people are trying to bust open door 1000 with key 1.  

Don’t put yourself under that kind of pressure.  

Take a little tiny step with whatever you have right now, and what’s required for step 2 will begin to present itself, when and only when you start taking some practical action.

This stage is about realising that’s it’s totally OK if you don’t know where you’re going yet, and that you don’t actually need to in order to start.  

Starting is all you need to do, with whatever you have right now, with whatever you know right now and whatever feels right, right now.

So what is the first step for you?

What tips or snippets of information can you start sharing today?

Do a live stream every day on a tip that you have for your ideal audience.  The tips don’t have to be ‘connected’ or even of the same topic at this stage.  As long as you are sharing, articulating, communicating and opening up lines of feedback and experimentation, you will move slowly towards an enlightened path that cannot unfold in stationary mode.

Ready to roll?!

If you are struggling to find your perfect course topic, I have a free training video and activity that will help you pick your perfect online course topic in my free 5 day ‘Create Your Course Plan Challenge’.

This article is an extract from my book ‘Awaken Your Course Creation Mojo’ which addresses the most common course creating mojo killers.