Assess, Address and Progress Your Project Capacity
According to the dictionary, capacity is the ability or power to do, experience or understand something. It plays a silent, often overlooked, part in the success of your dreams and goals.
You CAN succeed with your dream, but you should honestly assess your capacity to reach your dream as you get started. If you lack skills in any area, you should assess what that is, then take simple steps to increase your capacity to create a marketable product such as a book or training video or course.
If you know exactly what you want to create, how to do it, and how to market it, congrats! However, if that’s NOT you, keep reading.
Maybe you’re an expert with your topic, but you lack the knowledge of how to create a marketable product. Or – harder to admit but just as real – you lack the self-discipline to do the work needed.
All gaps and stumbling blocks can be overcome and turned into stepping stones!
First, assess where you are now
1. You have expert knowledge already but not sure what area to focus on? Or you don’t know how to
create something marketable?
2. You have a topic, but not the knowledge?
3. You’re missing technical skills you think you must know before you begin?
4. You have absolutely no ideas, but you want to create your own business?
Address those needs, and take Progressive action toward your goal.
Once you’ve honestly assessed where you are on this capacity timeline, you can then address it and plan to fill in the gaps.
Here are some ideas to get your thoughts flowing. If you know your topic, but aren’t sure where to focus, do a bit of research. What do you think your target buyer would be looking for? Check Amazon for books on the subject, or Google keywords to see how many people are searching for that topic monthly. Don’t let competition scare you off. If no one is writing about your topic, maybe it’s because no one is looking for it. It has to be something where you can generate a profit too. You might just need to adjust your topic to fill the right needs.
If you need additional knowledge, look for books, articles, or courses on your topic. Take a month to learn your topic from multiple resources. You don’t need to read everything, but at least skim through them, read the table of contents, get the flavor for what is being taught. You might discover informational gaps that you could address. You might become the expert because you’ve studied and can draw from all the others.
Focus on your topic, not on technical things like how to build a website. That will come later. First you need to increase your topic knowledge and capacity.
No idea yet? List your skills and passions. Where do they intersect? Then go research that to see if anyone is looking for information on that topic. You might need to tweak your ideas as you see what people are looking for.
If you’re easily distracted or lack the self-discipline to keep working on a project, you can overcome that if you really want to. Set goals, list what things need to be done to create a product or even simple blogposts to start. Set baby steps to begin with and commit to work consistently. You might only be able to work 5 minutes a day to start. But 5 minutes x 5 days a week x 4 weeks will add up to more than you have now. Plus you’ll develop a new habit that you can expand into larger chunks of time. You now have the self-discipline to keep moving in the right direction.
Whatever steps you apply, you’ll increase your capacity to go to the next level!