“You’ll do big things,” my father used to say to me, “…in your britches!”

I’m an ideas person, always have been. There are always at least two or three ideas on the go — ideas for inventions, ideas for movie scripts, ideas for social reform. The trouble is, they don’t tend to be small and, sadly, I’ve lacked what you might call follow-through.

My talent lies in dreaming them up, but with limited skills I hit a wall when I can’t, single-handedly, pull them off. So the ideas just sit there with no momentum until they slowly fade into a sepia memory of, “wouldn’t it have been great if…”

For example, I had this idea for a TV show when I was working at the BBC in London 15 years ago. The Beeb invests a good deal of money into its educational programming. This was at a time when they were particularly keen to include regional voices, representation of areas and communities all over Britain, not just the big cities.

The show would have been called Up To You, and was a reality show (they were just rising in popularity back then) aimed at youth, taking place in different senior schools across the country.

Each group of students would choose a social or environmental concern, be it local or global, that they agreed was important to them. They would be given a small amount of seed money and access to a legal team and financial experts — think Dragon’s Den but friendlier — and some of the influence and connections available to the BBC. Then the students would work out a plan as to what they were going to do to positively impact the situation, raise the necessary funds, get in touch with the various decision-makers and change the world.

The purpose of the show was not only to benefit from the end results, but mostly to empower young people and have others witness the potential of what one small group can actually do.

Secretly, of course, it’s exactly what I wish I’d had access to: the engine, the skill set and the community to make good ideas come to life.

At the time, I worked as an administrator in the rights department. It wasn’t us who made the shows. I didn’t know who to tell and wasn’t brave enough to ask so my idea — I still think it’s a good one — just rattled around in my head and heart and never saw the light of day (or, more importantly, a programming manager’s desk).

It’s very easy to believe that, as individuals, we are helpless. What could we possibly do? What impact can I have? I’m just one person. Who would listen? Who would care?

It’s easy and it’s comfortable and it’s convenient because then we don’t have to do anything about it.

It’s also easy to shoot down other people’s ideas. I find Bermudians like to play devil’s advocate. Why is that? Someone comes up with an idea and immediately everyone’s offering up all the reasons why it won’t work.

I’m the same: “It’s not practical, it costs a lot, no one would support it.” Ideas are defeated before they have even formed.

What if, instead, we came up with all the reasons why it would work?

We only have to look at history to see the power that individuals have — and I don’t mean the people born to power, but simply the people who passionately follow through on their ideas.

If we’re waiting for permission or someone to magically come along and ask us what we are thinking so they can make it happen for us then, as I’ve discovered, we could be waiting for a very long time.

What if we seek the groups of individuals ourselves — the like-minded, the people with the skills, those with the legal advice, the financial advice?

What if we make it happen for ourselves? What if we each take responsibility for making the changes we want to see in the world? After all, it is Up To Us!

Julia Pitt is a trained success coach and certified NLP practitioner on the team at Benedict Associates. For further information contact Julia on 705-7488, www.juliapittcoaching.com