"Putting it on paper lets you start fixing it. If it stays in your head, a perfect idea, you’ll never share it with anyone."
We often hold onto ideas for new activities, teaching methods, or course structures, waiting for the "perfect" moment to implement them. But in reality, ideas only grow when they’re shared and tested. The Pixar principle this week encourages you to put your brilliant ideas on paper so you can start fixing them and bringing them to life.
🎂 I recently listened to a podcast where a woman was changing her family's culture around sharing birthday wishes. If you think about it, from a young age, at birthday parties, we are encouraged to keep our dreams and wishes a secret when we blow out the candles because otherwise, they won't come true.
But the exact opposite is true. Ideas become real and tangible once we bring them into the open. It allows others to see them and help us along the way. It gives us the opportunity to refine and improve them. It would be fantastic if this process of sharing and testing ideas became a part of our professional culture because it holds so much potential for growth and improvement.
In this email, I offer a few practical ideas for bringing this principle to life and bringing your beautiful ideas into the world.
📝 Sketch it out
The first practical way to apply this Pixar principle is by sketching out your ideas, even in rough form. If you’ve been thinking about a new case study or simulation exercise, start by jotting down a basic outline. This first draft doesn’t need to be polished—simply getting it on paper helps you visualize how it might work. Once you see it, you can tweak and refine it to make it more effective. Plus, you can involve colleagues or students to help test and offer feedback.
One of my favorite tools for this is an app called Notability. I use it on my iPad, and it allows me to create messy mind maps. This is where all of my active learning decks start.
A mind map of an upcoming deck
🛫 Try a pilot project
The second strategy is to embrace small-scale pilot projects. If you have a big idea for a new teaching approach but aren’t sure if it’ll work, start by trying it with a small group of students or in one lesson. Maybe you’ve been thinking of going “textbook-free. Start by experimenting with one class and see how students respond. Testing ideas in smaller, controlled settings allows you to experiment, gather data, and make improvements before rolling it out more widely.
📆 Set a deadline
Finally, the third practical approach is to set a deadline for yourself. Sometimes, we hold onto ideas too long, trying to make them perfect. By setting a personal deadline to try out a new teaching method or activity, you give yourself a framework for action. For example, if you’ve been considering a new interactive learning strategy, commit to implementing it in your next unit. Even if it’s not perfect, getting it into practice allows you to gather feedback and improve over time. It is even better to share your deadline with someone - your office friend, your students, or maybe your dean. Deadlines create a sense of urgency, ensuring that ideas don’t remain theoretical but become actionable.
🧪 Continue to embrace experimentation
I love the idea of "learning in motion," a concept that pushes against my perfectionist tendencies and challenges me to be vulnerable. It can be tough to build in public because it opens you up to negative feedback you may not be ready for. But I hope this series about using Pixar’s storytelling principles in nursing education has offered you inspiration and motivation. From crafting meaningful endings to testing and refining new ideas in public, these principles remind us that creativity and experimentation are essential to our profession.
And one final note: don’t be afraid to look beyond nursing for inspiration—whether from animation, business, or other fields, great ideas are all around us. A college environment is rich with diverse disciplines and exciting people to learn from. Let’s continue to innovate!
💜 Thanks for reading!
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