How To Make 2022 The Most Creative Year of Your Life

Sheesh, talk about crazy New Years resolutions…
But yes, it’s true. 2022 will be my most creative year yet and I’m excited to share with you exactly how I plan on accomplishing this feat (and how you can too!)
But first, let’s address the elephant in the room: Why?
Why do you want to make this your most creative year, Youssef?
I love why questions, because without them, there is no purpose and without purpose, there is no drive.
Here’s why: Over the course of the last year, I’ve made it a personal goal to surround myself with ambitious, entrepreneurial and highly driven people. I wanted to create an environment that would inspire me to pursue new ventures, develop my knowledge gaps and break the boundaries of what I believed could and could not be done.
One of the many actions I took to pursue this goal was to join ASIF Ventures, a student-led venture capital firm that invests in startups founded by students & recent graduates in Amsterdam. Their office is in the middle of Start-Up Village, an amazing community that enables entrepreneurs to develop their business ideas by providing affordable office spaces.
I’ve met so many incredible people there from all walks of life. From designers creating the fashion collections of tomorrow to programmers using artificial intelligence to build our next favourite smartphone application; the diversity found in such environments is mesmerizing and full of life.
Yet despite all their unique goals and interests, there was one thing shared by each and every individual I encountered. One thing that connected and brought all those people together, in the same place, at the same time.
Innovation.
Deep down, rooted inside all those individuals, was the desire to create something out of nothing, build things that make an impact and yes, you guessed it, innovate the world as we know it.
Individuals such as these are the future. Our future.
Without innovation, there is no growth. Without growth, there is no life.
In case you’re still wondering, that’s why. Growth, innovation and ultimately, life is why I’m choosing to make my 2022 a year filled with new thoughts, ideas and creations.
All right, let’s assume I haven’t completely lost you with all my mumbo-jumbo. You’re now probably wondering how I’m going to achieve becoming more “creative”? I can’t just wake up every day, go to the creative gym and bench press 50kg of new ideas, right? Or can I…
What if I told you there’s a way to train your brain to become more creative. A way to become an “idea machine”. Yes, it’s actually possible and quite frankly, pretty simple.
Are you ready for the challenge?
10 Ideas a day
Yup, that’s it. Every single day, you’ll have to come up with and write down 10 ideas about how to do something. It could be anything. Literally. I’ve been doing this for about 2 weeks now and I’ve had days where I came up with things like 10 ideas to motivate myself to work on my bachelor thesis. On one day I even came up with 10 Christmas gift ideas for my partner. Another time I came up with 10 business ideas that would operate and be built entirely on the metaverse. The point is not to come up with million-dollar ideas every time (although I’d be super impressed if you could), but rather to constantly exercise your idea muscle (aka your brain).
If you’re curious to learn more about it, you can find James Altucher’s (the man who made this habit mainstream) blog post here on the subject, where he goes into a lot of detail about what to expect, dos & don’ts, benefits and general information as to why and how you can turn this into a keystone habit and elevate your life.
Does this sound crazy? Exciting? I don’t know about you guys but I am thrilled at the thought of intentionally coming up with 3650 ideas next year. So much so, that I would like to invite any like-minded individuals to join me on this journey towards heightened levels of thinking and creativity.
If this is something you’re interested in, please comment or send me a private message and I will add you to a private group where we’ll be sharing our daily 10 ideas and getting inspiration and support from one another.
Until then, I wish you a wonderful start to 2022 and may all your best ideas come to fruition.
Love, Youssef
