It is a new year, a great time for reflection and to consider your goals and objectives for 2016. This could be a great time to get to work on your product idea: the one that has been bouncing around in your head, maybe you have made some drawings and tinkered with it.

Below are ideas that helped me to move forward with my product and why now might be a good time for you to do so as well.

Maybe it is Time to Get Serious About Your Idea

I just watched the movie Joy starring Jennifer Lawrence as inventor Joy Mangano. I think every inventor should watch this movie – it is a tale of trials, tribulations, struggles, and ultimately, success.

Inventing is quite risky and can be capital intensive and most inventors do not succeed. Risk surrounds everything of value. But a useful definition of insanity is continuing to do the same things but expecting different results. Maybe it is time to step outside your comfort zone and try something new and different.

Maybe it is time to get serious about your idea.

Lori Greiner, Joy Mangano and my good friends sisters Barbara Pitts and Mary Sarao and I all started with a simple idea – a better solution to something. Each of us simply refused to give up on our ideas.

We worked hard to refine the ideas into working prototypes, then products, invested in them to obtain patents. A major component for every successful inventor is brutal persistence: take your no and move on to the next one and the next until you get a yes. All of us went way outside our comfort zones to achieve something notable and worthy.

Lori and Joy are millionaires, Barbara and Mary live very well, I am semi-retired and am able to travel a lot more. The rewards that can come from taking a bit of risk are considerable.

Your turn? What if your idea turns into a successful product selling in stores all over the US? How would that change your life?

Consider the long-term view. If you just continue to do what you have always done, you'll continue to get what you have always gotten. That may not be a bad deal. But what will your life be like 5 years from now, 10 years? Probably about like it is now.

I believe that life should be an adventure, a journey from where you are to somewhere else.

Resources for inventors abound, there are people everywhere who can help you along your journey. Your product may not succeed, but you'll never know if you don't do all you can to get it to the marketplace.

Maybe it is time to get serious about your idea.

Stay tuned!