Many people struggle with finding the right idea to develop or deciding on what kind of business to start as they consider embarking upon an entrepreneurial journey.  Truthfully, ideas are a dime a dozen, and in very rare occasions you will conceive an idea that is truly unique, that no one else has ever thought of, or that hasn’t already started to be developed. 

The good news is that your idea does not have to be all that unique in order to be successful.  What is important though is that your version of the idea be conceived or developed in ways that are uniquely yours, and that it is so well crafted that no one else will match the quality or the value that you have to offer.

But this still doesn’t help with the dilemma presented in the first paragraph, which is, how do you find the right idea to start a new business?  How do you know what is going to work and what will not?  Well, the bad news is that no one can guarantee that any idea whatsoever will be successful.  However, there are ways to increase your chances of finding an idea that will be the right one for you.

You must have heard the saying “do what you love and the money will follow”.  What this is really saying, to put it in very simple terms, is that in order to be truly successful at anything, you must be passionate about it, or at a minimum, get some joy or satisfaction from it.  You will not find too many people out there who are very successful doing something they hate.

But even after internalizing this well-accepted concept that you should do what you are passionate about, people still struggle with finding the right idea to pursue.  Part of it is because “being passionate” about something is a right brain activity, and finding a good business idea is a left brain activity.  So if you approach this problem by simply asking yourself “what am I passionate about?” you may end up empty-handed, or at best come up with a list of things that you still cannot connect to a viable business idea.

Here is another approach that is much more effective.  Keep with you at all times a notebook where you can jot down ideas as they come into your head, no matter where you are.  These ideas don’t have to be fully developed, but every time you start to think about a concept that might be workable as a business idea, write down your thoughts.  It is likely that you will come up with a lot of lousy ideas at first, but that is ok.  Just keep on recording your thoughts over an extended period of time.

Eventually, you will come up with an idea that will simply click with you.  This maybe something that will happen immediately when you conceive of the idea, or it may happen a while after you write it down.  But there will be some signs from your brain that will give you an indication that this is the right idea for you to pursue, so you must listen attentively.

The sign that you are looking for will come from your right brain, and is commonly referred to as “excitement”.  What exactly do we mean by excitement?  We mean, you will not stop thinking about it.  You will have trouble concentrating on other things because the idea will start to consume you.  You will want to act on it immediately, research it, talk to other people about it.  You will feel a “silly” rush, an almost childish attitude towards the idea, where the possibilities just seem endless.  That is what we mean by excitement.  And when you feel it, listen to it carefully.  This is the sign you have been waiting for.  It is an indication from your right brain that this is the right idea to pursue.

Are there any guarantees that an idea you get excited about will be successful?  Absolutely not.  But even if the idea fails, at least you will know that you are in the right ballpark.  You may get the implementation wrong, or the timing wrong, or many of the other ingredients of a successful business idea wrong.  But you will know that you are closing in on the right idea that will eventually make you successful, if you are persistent enough.

Look at it this way.  If you work on an idea that you are truly exited about, in a worst case scenario you will at least have a ball pursuing it.  But if you work on an idea that you find totally dull, or that you have to drag yourself to work on, not only will you increase the chances of failure, you will also make yourself miserable. 

And friends, life is too short to be miserable pursing the wrong idea.