Even bad ideas make you better.

Josh Spector

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Aug 16, 2016 · 3 min read

I dare you to come up with 50 ideas.

Think about a problem you want to solve, an issue you hope to overcome, or a message you want to convey and write down 50 ideas of how you can do so.

When you commit to generating 50 ideas for something, here’s what happens:

1. You have good ideas.
2. You have bad ideas.
3. You push yourself.
4. You get frustrated.
5. You want to give up.
6. You learn not to give up.
7. You discover “hard” isn’t “impossible.”
8. You discover you’re not as good at generating ideas as you think.
9. You discover you’re better at generating ideas than you think.
10. You recognize the value of process.
11. You realize the power of goals.
12. You surprise yourself when you push past the obvious.
13. You realize how rarely you do deep thinking.
14. You stop judging yourself.
15. You become ok with just being ok.
16. Your mind drifts off subject.
17. Your mind drifts into new areas where you discover new things.
18. You become comfortable with being uncomfortable.
19. You stop caring what others will think about your ideas.
20. You wonder how many other things you do could be improved by forcing yourself to generate 50 ideas for them.
21. You wonder if you’ve settled for easy ideas too often.
22. You realize you could generate 100 ideas if you had to.
23. You realize brainstorming doesn’t have to be a collective activity.
24. You realize ideas come in spurts.
25. You focus.
26. You count. Repeatedly.
27. You gain a new respect for the number 50.
28. You get a sense of accomplishment.
29. You wind up in a better place than when you started.
30. You believe writer’s block is a myth.
31. Your ideas become more genuine.
32. You break ideas down to their smallest parts.
33. You sit in silence.
34. You find inspiration in your surroundings.
35. You find different angles in the problem.
36. You reach a point where even bad ideas feel good.
37. You see the value of bad ideas.
38. You reframe the question.
39. You realize most people don’t do this and few ever have.
40. You wonder if there’s a magic number of ideas that unleashes the best ones.
41. You realize your 41st idea has as much chance of being great as your first.
42. You see the faults in your initial premise.
43. You also see its strengths.
44. You build momentum.
45. You wonder if it’s this hard for other people.
46. You get tempted to distract yourself with social media or email.
47. You want to tell others to try it.
48. You look forward to the revision process.
49. You realize anything is possible.
50. You discover you can do it.

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