When Your Big Vision Becomes Your Biggest Problem

The thing that inspires you most is often the thing that keeps you stuck.

You know that sinking feeling when everyone celebrates your work, but you have no idea what to do next?

When the thing that should energise you instead makes you want to hide under your desk?

For years, I’d engineered pieces hoping for that breakthrough moment. They never came.

About ten years ago, I stopped trying to guess what would work and started writing what I actually wanted to read on the internet.

Then I finally wrote something that people called a blueprint. A manifesto.

Instead of feeling triumphant, I felt sick for a day, staring at my screen, trying to figure out what everyone thought I’d promised.

More than once since I started attempting to write online in 2006, I’d engineered pieces I was sure would be my Jerry Maguire moment. They never were.

But this one? People were calling it a blueprint. A manifesto. I stared at my screen, wondering what the hell that meant.

So I went back to the piece, started picking out points, trying to reverse-engineer what everyone else was seeing. It’s been fuel for this newsletter ever since - though I hope I don’t run out!

When Success Becomes Its Own Trap

Here’s what happened next: looking at those comments:

• Thor A Rain is talking about supply chains.
• Tamasine McCaig is threading it all together.
• Ann Hawkins (who runs The Drive Network) wrote, ‘You’ve not only written an essay for our times but a manifesto’

I felt sick for a day. No one asked when I was starting a movement.

But I suddenly paid attention to everything I was writing - this newsletter, Coworking Values Podcast, Unreasonable Connection, and London Coworking Assembly.

It sharpened my focus, much like when you’re flying downhill on a mountain bike and suddenly notice the brakes have broken.

I’d spent years engineering pieces I thought would be my Jerry Maguire moment.

Finally, I write something that lands, and I’m thinking: ‘Right. Now I actually have to live up to what people think I’ve said.’

In my experience, in the freelance creator economy, if you can’t deliver on what people think you’ve promised, you don’t just lose credibility—you lose your next client. Your story IS your infrastructure.

The Solution: Start With What’s Strong (Not What’s Perfect)

Here’s what I learned about turning overwhelming visions into Monday morning tasks: start with what’s already strong, not what feels broken.

This principle came up in this week’s podcast with Jon Alexander , where he quoted Cormac Russell :

“Start with what’s strong, not with what’s wrong, and then use what’s strong to fix what’s wrong.”

While corporate coworking spaces spend months perfecting strategic plans, this approach focuses on taking meaningful action by Monday morning. It’s the difference between performing strategy and practising citizenship.

This Paralysis Isn’t Personal - It’s Systemic

This paralysis isn’t personal failure - it’s systemic design. When Iris K. commented ‘my entire business is built on Google and it’s EATING AT ME daily,’ she revealed the trap perfectly.

Like her, my whole business still runs on Google - it’s a constant tension. We’re not just overwhelmed by our own success - we’re caught in systems designed to keep us dependent. Look at the responses to ‘When Comfort Becomes Complicity.’

• Thor talking about switching from Google to Proton ‘as skillfully as I’m able.’
• Fanny is making the same painful transition.
• Matt is building ‘Escape the Amazon’ groups because individual action isn’t enough.

This is the Consumer Story in its death throes. We’re trained to perfect the product before we find the people. To optimise platforms before we start conversations. To wait for permission from systems that profit from our waiting.

Every hour you spend planning the perfect community initiative is an hour you’re not building alternatives to their extraction.

The overwhelm isn’t a bug - it’s a feature. The planning paralysis keeps us from creating our own solutions and instead consumes those of others.

But look what happened when people found each other in our Unreasonable Connection calls: ‘We should be a movement... like the invisible mycelium network of a forest.’ Community becomes the antidote to extraction.

The Real Cost of ADHD Brain Chaos

The ideas don’t arrive in a neat line - they crash into your brain like a three-car pileup on the A406 by Charlie Brown’s roundabout. ADHD doesn’t make you ‘creative’ - it makes you dangerous to yourself when the pressure hits.

Every idea arrives with twelve other ideas tangled around its ankles. You’re trying to explain one concept, and suddenly you’re five rabbit holes deep, explaining the history of dyslexia research instead of answering the simple question someone asked you about your waitlist.

Every day I wake up and wander around for a few minutes like I’m trying to find my wedding ring in a Jacuzzi at a hip-hop party.

If it weren’t for EMT meditation (Tapping) every day, and endless amounts of notepads, timers and apps, I’d be fucked.

Dyslexia means I struggle to sequence tasks in a logical order, so I spend hours reorganising my to-do list instead of completing any of them - and I know what I am doing!

I fall into what I call the “organising and re-organising loop” – the endless, counterproductive cycle of planning the plan instead of doing the work.

From Vision to Monday Morning Action

So what does “starting with what’s strong” look like in practice? Let me show you exactly how this played out for me this week.

After “When Comfort Becomes Complicity” started being called my manifesto, I had this massive, interconnected vision for how the coworking industry could evolve.

But when I sat down to figure out what to do next, my brain immediately went into overwhelm mode.

The breakthrough came when I stopped trying to organise everything into a perfect system and instead asked: “What’s the strongest, most energised part of this entire vision right now?”

The answer was immediately clear: the incredible community that gathers every month for our Unreasonable Connection calls.

These aren’t networking events or sales pitches. They’re genuine conversations between people who run coworking spaces, discussing what truly matters.

• No sponsors
• No frameworks
• No ‘labels’
• No bollocks.
• Just us, figuring out how to do this work better together.

So, instead of trying to build a grand new initiative from scratch, I asked, “How do I amplify what’s already working?”

The answer wasn’t a 50-page strategic plan. It was a simple decision: turn our strongest existing asset into something even stronger.

Create an in-person version of Unreasonable Connection for February 2026 in the same week as Workspace Design Show London and start building a waitlist now.

That’s it. That’s the entire “implementation plan” for what others called my manifesto.

One event, one waitlist, one small step that builds on what’s already generating energy and connection.

The Monday Domino: A Core Principle of Civic Coworking

Instead of trying to plan your entire vision implementation, identify your Monday Domino.

This isn’t just a productivity hack - it’s a fundamental principle that separates authentic community building from corporate performance theatre.

Your Monday Domino is the smallest possible action you can take that’s directly connected to your vision. It’s not the most important thing, or the most strategic thing. It’s simply the thing that will create momentum.

This is where civic coworking diverges entirely from corporate coworking.

Corporate players spend months creating strategic plans that often never get implemented, as they are buried in committee meetings and consultant presentations, reimagining seamless integrations with best practices. 🤮 We give community builders a way to create tangible change by Monday morning. That’s not just faster - it’s fundamentally different. It’s the difference between performing strategy and practising citizenship.

For me, that Monday Domino was creating a simple waitlist for the February Unreasonable Connection event.

It took about ten minutes to set up. It required no budget, no complex planning, and no coordination with other people. But it was directly connected to the vision others saw in my work about creating stronger, more connected communities.

Here are examples specific to coworking space operators:

• Maybe your vision is about building a more connected community, and your Monday Domino is spending 15 minutes writing a personal welcome email to the new member who joined on Friday.
• Maybe it’s about being a civic hub, and your Monday Domino is emailing that local artist, like Samia Tossio, you’ve been meaning to connect with about using your wall space.
• Your vision may involve supporting local entrepreneurs, and your Monday Domino is introducing two members who you think should know each other, with a simple three-line email.
• Maybe it’s about creating more inclusive spaces, and your Monday Domino is spending ten minutes researching one accessibility improvement you could make.

The magic of the Monday Domino isn’t in the action itself – it’s in what the action creates.

Once I had that waitlist set up, I had something concrete to talk about. I had proof that the vision others saw in my work wasn’t just an abstract idea – it was something real that people could engage with.

Do The Work

The day after people start calling your work a manifesto is when the real work begins. Not the work of having perfect plans or comprehensive systems, but the work of taking small, consistent actions that align with the vision others see in what you’ve created.

This work is harder than writing the original piece because it’s less glamorous. There’s no applause for setting up a waitlist or sending a personal welcome email. But this unglamorous work is where transformation actually happens.

Your vision isn’t a blueprint to be followed – it’s a compass to be consulted. And like any compass, it’s only useful when you’re actually moving.

So start with what’s strong. Identify your Monday Domino. Take the smallest possible step that creates momentum. And trust that clarity will emerge from action in ways that planning never can.

The world needs your vision. But more than that, it needs your willingness to start before you’re ready, to build before you’re certain, and to act before you have all the answers.

As Adrienne Maree Brown puts it:

“We’ve actually had enough of mile-wide, inch-deep change because it just bounces off. What we need in this moment is an inch-wide, mile-deep change that schisms the existing paradigm.”

Commit to your place, your demographic, the thing that makes you uniquely you, and go deep on it.

If your Monday Domino is getting a system for building community through email, our free course “5 Biggest Mistakes Coworking Community Builders Make (And How to Avoid Them)” is designed specifically for that first step. Get it here.

If you’re not running a coworking space but want to connect with others on similar journeys, our Unreasonable Connection calls are open to anyone running a coworking community.

Bernie’s Picks

📅 The Drive Network - Subtle Networking Every Thursday, join a community of creators and entrepreneurs for honest check-ins about where we’re going and what we’re doing to get there. No pitches, no pressure – just real support for real work. Find it here.

🎙️ Coworking Values Podcast with Jon Alexander: The conversation that sparked this entire newsletter. Jon’s insights about starting with what’s strong instead of what’s wrong will change how you think about implementing your vision. Find it here.

🤝 Unreasonable Connection Our monthly online gathering for coworking space owners and community managers. Small groups, 'pukka' conversations, no bollocks. Next session: Wednesday, 15th October, 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM GMT+1. Find it here.

📚 Adrienne Maree Brown - Emergent Strategy The source of “inch-wide, mile-deep change” - essential reading for anyone building transformative community work. Find them here.

📖 Cormac Russell - “Start with what’s strong” The originator of the principle that became central to this week’s breakthrough: start with what’s strong, not what’s wrong. Find him here.

📧 When Comfort Becomes Complicity: The piece that others started calling my manifesto. If you haven’t read it yet, it’s the context for everything we’ve discussed today. Find it here.

The world needs more people willing to turn their visions – intended or not – into Monday morning tasks.

Thank you for your time and attention today.

Bernie 💚🍉

p.s. Sign up for our free London Coworking Assembly email course: “5 Biggest Mistakes Coworking Community Builders Make (And How to Avoid Them)” Get it here.