Hey Caela!
To answer your last question first — Yes, I can totally see this being a big focal point of 1-on-1 coaching, and being college-aged doesn’t make you too young. Our youngest client was actually 17 and still in high school! It’s really more about the readiness, which can happen at any age. And you strike me as an old soul who’s wise beyond her years. 🙂
It sounds like you’re in need of a filtering process for your ideas! Coming up with a handful (like 2-5) filter questions to ask yourself any time you’re trying to decide whether or not to pursue an idea is REALLY helpful in giving you perspective and narrowing down whether something is worth your time and energy.
Some ideas might be:
-“How well does this idea align with my Firestarter energy?” AKA, is it something you have creative autonomy over? Is the schedule going to be rigid? Sometimes an idea SEEMS cool, but it doesn’t align very well with our values. Like, for example, I could technically have a physical office for coaching with clients, but I would hate to have a commute and be tied to one physical location. So even though it’d be the same work, the environment wouldn’t be right. Doesn’t align enough with my values.
-“How likely is it that I will still be interested in this in a few weeks/months?” — It’s always useful to be honest with yourself about whether something is a shiny object, or whether it has staying power.
-“How possible is it that this thing could grow or evolve into something else?” — This isn’t to say you can’t commit to something that’s temporary or finite! But if your main goal is to be able to use an idea to leverage something (money, time, connections, experience, etc.) then something that you could see opening you up to even more and greater opportunities might be worth your while.
-“How much time/energy does this require from me? And is giving that amount of time/energy going to burn me out or will I be fine?” — An idea may not be worth it if it’s going to cause you to be resentful of the time you no longer have. Ideally, an idea worth pursuing is one that you stay excited about and engaged in because you aren’t tired of it, or aren’t annoyed that it’s taking away from other things.”
These are just a few examples! You can ponder this for yourself and see, based on your own unique values and preferences, what other types of filter questions might work best for you. Let me know what you think! 🙂