WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO NEXT with this one wild and precious life* of yours?  When I travel or am in the garden, I’m often dreaming about things I’d like to do, people I’d like to meet, and things I’d like to learn more about. On rare occasion, a big idea for a new role or venture will get ahold of me and take root. Yet, it will almost always be years before anything meaningful comes of these fleeting impulses. How does one get from here to there? Where does one need to leap, or remove obstacles? Or when is it appropriate to pause and take another path?

As I look backward over the landscape of my experiences, I recognize that almost everything good and lasting that I have been involved in has come from early planting and steady cultivation.

Planting involves taking actions that build capacity, strength and courage.

Cultivation nurtures fledging relationships to embody energy, trust, and resilience.

Both are active practices requiring patience and persistence, attention and intention. They represent paths to the realization of potential. Ideas and impulses are brought into full bloom by integrating a long-view with small, seemingly trivial daily actions. Long term joy and fulfillment seems to be the reward of steady, continuous practice of attending to the present while moving with the future.

*Mary Oliver’s stunning wake-up poem, The Summer Day, can be found here.

Here are three ideagardening practices that support success in bringing ideas to fruition:

1. Cultivate reciprocity, not transaction in relationships.
2. Imagine your next career adventure as a role, rather than a job.
3. Maintain continuity in your connections to mentors, partners and future collaborators.

For further reading: Cultivating reciprocity, not transaction in relationships

For further reading: The essence of cultivating ongoing relationship, rather than transactional interaction

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About the author

William Rosenzweig