Have you ever been told your ideas are too much for others to handle? Are you a Thought Dancer?

Here’s the situation – you suddenly get a brilliant idea that is so exciting, you just can’t hold it in. You rush off to your significant other, parent, colleague or friend and blurt it out – all your ideas pouring forth as they form, running in a torrent-like “stream of consciousness”.

Maybe it’s too fast. Maybe your logical leaps are too far apart, or require too much extra mental processing. Maybe your sentences are all over the shop. Whatever, the reason, suddenly the listener tells you to stop.

Both sides are left bewildered and hurt. You, because your ideating bubble has been burst, and you may think the listener doesn’t care. The listener is reeling because they feel like their brain just got hijacked. Who’s right and who’s wrong?

Well, truthfully, both sides of this scenario are perfectly within their rights to feel the way they do. Nobody is at fault. But then, nobody is happy about it, and both sides probably feel misunderstood and deflated from the experience.

If this has happened to you, then I name you a fellow “Thought Dancer” and declare that you’re not alone.

The Danger of Thought Dancing

It’s a situation which can occur with people who think and ideate rapidly on the spot. That rapid thought process, when you try and share it with others can be too unwieldy for other people to keep up with. Smart and creative people like to run with ideas. We love to share them. But we need to be mindful of how they can affect others.

Think of it in terms of a physical dance – in twirling your arms around, you might accidentally whack another person in the face. It was an accident, and you were just having fun, doing what you love. But someone clearly got hurt in the process.

What do you both do? Do you stop dancing forever, giving up what you love? Does the other person resign themself to continually getting a fat lip? No – you compromise, and go find a safe space to dance, where no one is getting hurt and you can still twirl your little heart out.

I totally get it – I am an unwieldy thought dancer too. I have been told I am “too much” and “too intense”. And when I get ideas they sometimes come out with the subtlety of a freight train. Trying to actively listen to another person do it can be really draining. It seems counterintuitive, but having the thoughts yourself isn’t anywhere near as hard as processing someone else’s thoughts as they blurt out.

I accept this is part of who I am – I don’t try and “hide it,” but I also don’t pretend my other half is “wrong” for not being built to deal with all my intensities. And I’d never feel like he accepts me less or loves me less. He’s just not built of titanium…

Recording your Dance

At any rate, blurting out your ideas to someone else is often a waste of a good idea. Not because it’s lost on the other person, but in general, ideas that aren’t captured get lost. Are you really expecting the person listening to your never-ending chain of thoughts to both process, AND remember everything?

Whatever you improvise in your Thought Dance on the spur of the moment, will probably be lost forever. If your idea is so damned good, then it’s worth recording somehow. Think of it this way – how will you ever do anything good with your amazing ideas if you don’t capture them?

I got into the habit of jotting things down, because if i don’t jot it down it’s gone. It’s a good habit to get into. You can:

• Get a notebook and write, write, write
• Use voice recording on your phone and dictate to yourself
• Make notes on your laptop or phone

And don’t be shy about using a combination of methods. I don’t care how you do it, just get it done. Don’t worry if it doesn’t totally make sense – stream of consciousness stuff, like rapid epiphanies and on-the-fly ideation, is hard enough to process in your own brain sometimes, so just let it fall out for now.

Choreography – Get organised

Once all the ideas are out, now it’s time to organise them. As they are, they’re probably not coherent.

The beauty of going back over everything is that not only does it prepare your thoughts for presentation to someone else, but it gives you a chance to better understand and refine your own material.

Some things you might want to do include:

• Linking or grouping like topics together
• Making a logical flow (say if it’s a process with steps, or a plan to take action)
• Refine wording so it’s more succinct
• Expand on ideas
• Boil down big theories into key concepts
• Simplify, or remove duplication
• Fact check or do further research
• Think about who might be interested in / benefit from your idea

It’s show time!

So you’ve run through your amazing idea, and now that’s it’s refined and in order, you now understand it’s pretty damned useful. What do you do now?

Depending on what it is, will depend on where you go from here. But for a lot of ideas, talking to someone about it, is generally the first step. Find someone appropriate to talk to about it once it’s all nice and concise. When I say appropriate, I mean someone who understands the topic or is interested in it.

Then… Do it! Take that brilliant idea and make something of it. Journal it, draft it, make it, blog it, vlog it, build it, create it, cook it, post it online, send it, do it, try it, enjoy it… Because what is the point of having brilliant, powerful epiphanies and ideas if you’re just going to let them go to waste? Seize the day!

Keep dancing

Once you’ve seen one of your Thought Dances come to life, you’ll want to do it more and more (trust me on this). The more you practice that routine – capture, organise, and do – the more natural it will become.

As for your dancing partner? Neither of you are wrong. Nobody’s stopped caring. Nobody’s feelings are illegitimate. It’s just that no one is made of titanium, no matter how much they love you and accept you for who you are.

Once you’ve stopped whacking them in the face, and treading on their toes, things might be a little less stressful for you both. You now have a place to mentally twirl and leap to your hearts content (possibly more vigorously than ever before), and they no longer fear your brain hijackings.

And trust me when I say they will love seeing how happy it makes you to bring your dances to life!

You don’t have to hide your brilliant mind, but you do need to accept that it is powerful and potent. Don’t shut it off, just focus it somewhere it can do good, and then dance till you drop!