I was a sheep in a flock. I didn't think for myself nor did I even tried to. I've always waited for someone to make something happen.

I've never really thought big, I was living in a small world inside my own mind thinking that this is all there is to life.

• Wake up 10 minutes before work

• Work until it's time for lunch

• Eat lunch

• Work until it's time for dinner

• Eat dinner

• Play video games until it's time to sleep

• Sleep

• Repeat

This was my life a year ago. My reality was so small—I couldn't help it because it was all my mind could imagine. I've never really thought outside the box—I've always followed what others did—I've always walked the path that others paved. I thought those people were just lucky enough to be creative—like creativity was an inborn talent and I had no chance to be like them.

The Cycle Of Overwhelm

You feel overwhelmed because you don't have an outlet for your thoughts.

Thoughts pile up in the head until it builds up over time and overtake your brain's capacity to handle information and this results in the feeling of stress.

Sometimes you don't know what to say—most times you do know, but don't know how to say it. When you feel overwhelmed, it's natural to have a hard time speaking your thoughts—which in turn makes you bottle it up—which keeps intensifying the feeling of overwhelm. This repeats the cycle over and over.

The Modern World Has Broken People's Capacity To Think

Social media is more toxic than ever. Traditional media is full of an individual's propaganda and you never really know what's true—one thing leads to another and the truth gets lost along the way. Thinkers are getting cancelled left and right. Modern education is a one big indoctrination system.

People are afraid to express their ideas and thoughts.

The Golden Age Of Thinkers

In this day and age, people who can articulately think can make a lot of money.

• People pay other people to do the thinking for them.

• People are now earning money with the quality of their ideas, not time.

Imagine monetizing your thoughts and ideas, talking about whatever you want in a way that you want while impacting other people's lives in positive ways. There has never been a better time for people to put their thinking skills into practice and change the situations of their lives in a better way.

Thinking articulately is the best skill I've learned so far. Being able to put my own thoughts and ideas or even others' in a blank page, and expand on it has done wonders for my creativity thinking and critical thinking. This is the secret on how to have unlimited high-quality ideas.

The World Will Crave Humans

Authenticity is king.

With the age of AI getting more and more prevalent—people are going to be relying on AI to generate ideas and do the creative thinking for them. This means that the demand for an idea with a human's unique perspective based on a human's experience and memories is just going to increase.

Nowadays, ideas are becoming the new oil—especially ideas with a human touch. There have been a rise of digital creators. Everyday, more creators are coming out and sharing their ideas and thoughts—some have their own uniqueness, while some are painfully and obviously generated by AI.

Building A Habit Of Thinking

Give yourself space and time for focused thinking. No phones, no one else but you, no distractions. Most people don't do this nowadays—they can't fathom the idea of sitting, doing nothing but just letting their mind run free. But it's alright, that just means that most people won't be able to think better than you. (That is if you follow what I'm gonna say below.)

To build a habit of thinking and train it, first thing in the morning—you have to be aware about whatever is in your mind, it could be:

• A dream you had

• Yesterday's conversation

• A problem you've been trying to solve

• YouTube video, podcast episode, movies, or books that you've been reading

• Or whatever random thoughts or ideas that pop in your head as soon as you wake up

Second after being aware,

• Write it all out

• Think of the problems, goals and benefits that you can associate with the idea

• If your mind is running wild—you can think of a personal experience that you can relate it with, or a process to solve the problem. This is optional.

• Do this everyday for at least 15–30 minutes every morning when you just woke up. This is the best time because your brain is primed and fresh for creative thinking.

It's a simple habit, but a very impactful one.

• You will gain mental clarity.

• It improves your critical thinking.

• It greatly improves the quality of your ideas.

• Be able to communicate better because you can articulate your thoughts and turn it into speech.

• It'll make your writing process faster because you transfer the ideas you generate over to your writing.

One simple habit of idea capturing and developing—that you can do for just 30 minutes a day can have a ripple effect that affects every aspect of your life positively.

Thinker's Tools

Ideas can come from anywhere. One thing that you wouldn't want to do is come up with an idea when you're in the middle of something and have no way to remember it.

I know because I've struggled with this—an idea would pop in my head, a pretty good one but then I'd forget about it just because I tried to just save it in my brain because I was too busy doing something else.

It's very important that you have something to use to capture an idea whenever it comes. Before the internet took over—writers always had little notebooks and a pen with them because they understood the importance of capturing an idea.

Nowadays, it's so much easier because of the technological advancements that we've gone through and are still going through. I've tried a lot of different note-taking apps before and there are 2 things that I can definitely recommend for you to try it out and choose whichever suits you.

• Notion - Personally, I've used this one the longest and I can definitely stand by it. It's a pretty versatile note-taking software that you can customize according to your needs. There are lots of notion templates out there already so I suggest you do your own research and figure out which ones suits your needs.

• Kortex - Now this one is fairly new and is still in its early development stages but I've switched over to this from Notion. In my opinion—it's more designed for the use of creators, writers and thinkers especially with its features heavily focused on serving as a second brain, idea capturing, connecting ideas with different ideas and notes around the app that will definitely help in getting past through writer's block.

These are just my personal recommendations based on my personal experiences and style. I still recommend that you explore on your own, look for tools that will suit your personal needs and style. What I hope to instill unto you is the importance of idea capturing.

Your Ideas Are Valid

One last thing before you go on about your day and forget about all of this (hopefully not)—is that I want you to not limit yourself. Get out of your head and break through your limiting beliefs saying that your ideas are not good enough.

Society is built from people's individual unique ideas. Every. Single. One. Of. Us. contributes to the overall totality of society.

- James