Creating a Sense of Gratitude in your Life. Every Day.

To start the year off right, try these simple practices to cultivate gratitude.  When you're feeling blue or frustrated, use them as tools to get you back to a positive head space.

Stop Complaining.  About people, situations and events that make you unhappy, sad or depressed. Nobody can make you unhappy.  No situation can make you sad or miserable unless you allow it to.

Commit To Your Goals.  When we look for positivity in the little things that make our lives worthwhile, we leave no room for negativity and our goals come to the forefront. Instead of recounting all events of the day, filter out only the positive ones and make a note of them. It could be anything trivial, from your bus arriving on time, your mom cooking a delicious breakfast, to remembering to pay the bills on time. You would not believe how this helps you achieve your goals — by clearing the mind.

Be Kind.  To yourself and others.  It's scientifically proven to make you feel good.  Helping someone selflessly releases serotonin in your brain and hence makes you feel good about yourself almost instantly. Try doing one act of kindness every day to flush out the toxins of depression from your system.

Practice Forgiveness.  Hatred is a negative feeling and harboring it will have nothing but negative effects on your well-being. Stop thinking about the hateful emotion/person and let it go. Remember to forgive yourself too.  

Release The Past.  When you find yourself thinking that the past looked so much better than the present and the future looks so frightening - Stop.  Remember that the present is all you have.  Be present in everything you do and enjoy life. After all life is a journey not a destination. Have a clear vision for the future, prepare yourself, but always be present in the now.

Be Optimistic.  Treat failure as an opportunity to learn a new and better lesson from life.  Never give up trying. Once you start harboring an optimistic attitude towards life, success will automatically follow.

Don't be Afraid to Dream.  Dreams motivate, inspire and expand our sense of self. They also make us happy because they give our lives a sense of purpose. Happy people usually love what they do, and if they don’t, they love who they are. Dreams remind us who we are.

Care For Your Body. Your physical condition has a direct connection with your well-being. A fit body and healthy mind is reflective of happiness. Start working towards the
health of your physical, mental and emotional energy by caring for your body.  Exercise and meditation help calm your nerves, soothe your mind and elevate your mood.

Give.  Cultivate a habit of sharing with others — your money, knowledge, service, wisdom, care, love.  Giving has many unexpected benefits from attracting more happiness into your life, to inspiring others, and changing the lives of those you touch. In the end the whole world is made into a better place. Ask, “how can I serve?” Pay it forward. Give freely.

By practicing these steps daily and being conscious of them, you will learn gratitude at a level you could never appreciate before. You’re made out of love, and there’s an opportunity at every corner to show it.  Excerpted from wake Up World

 

“Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace and gratitude.”  - Denis Waitley

Spreading the Spirit of Gratitude This Season

Gift-giving is a strong tradition in many cultures all over the world, but some gifts are best received from the inside-out; from a place where love and appreciation begins. Move through this season of thanks and giving with awareness, and not just going through the motions.  The best gifts aren't bought from a store, they come through spending quality time with the people you care about, or from gifts that come from the heart

Here are a few gifts of gratitude your friends and family will love:

Donate in Someone’s Name.  The perfect gift for the person who has everything: something for someone in need. Make a donation in a family member’s name this year, choosing a charity you think they would be passionate about. Maybe even suggest making charitable donations a new tradition.

Give the Gift of Time.  This can be as simple as an IOU for a task that you know needs doing.  

Make a homemade card or gift.  Taking the extra time to give something that's not "off the shelf" makes whatever you give so much more special.  Because these gifts can be quite cost effective, be extra generous and bestow your goodies on your hair stylist, babysitter, and landlord too.

Shop Local.  If making homemade gifts is too intimidating, bless local business owners.

Host a Party and Ask People to Pay “Cover”.  Time celebrating with family, friends and neighbors is what creates the best memories, and strengthens relationships. If you host a party, ask guests to bring cash for charity, or canned goods for the local food bank, as their “cover” for the night.
 

Volunteer.  Make volunteering a holiday tradition. Get some friends together and spend time with seniors, or in a local soup kitchen. If you have kids, get them involved, too. If you buy toys for a toy drive, bring them to the drop-off zone to help them understand the importance, and rewards, of generosity.  Excerpted from eHarmony

And for yourself, be thankful for those things that you may normally take for granted (and that some people are unable to experience) — the ability to breathe, to walk, to eat, to speak, to grow, to connect, to love, to live.

As the new year begins, remember to take the time to recognize and express your gratitude for important people in your life.  Whether it be in person or with a thank you note. 

Gratitude is a glue that binds people together. To give it is to receive it because to receive it you must first give it. This is a beautiful circle. When your friends and family engage with you in this flow of thanks, you’ll never again be alone and wanting for help.
 

“You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink.”    - G. K. Chesterton

 

A Thankful State of Being

When we are in the state of thankfulness, we are in a higher state of awareness.

Often when we practice being thankful, we go through the process of counting our blessings, acknowledging the wonderful people, things and places that make up our reality. While it is fine to be grateful for the good fortune we have accumulated, true thankfulness stems from a powerful comprehension of the gift of simply being alive, and when we feel it, we feel it regardless of our circumstances. In this deep state of gratitude, we recognize the purity of the experience of being, in and of itself, and our thankfulness is part and parcel of our awareness that we are one with this great mystery that is life.

It is difficult for most of us to access this level of consciousness as we are very caught up in the ups and downs of our individual experiences in the world. The thing to remember about the world, though, is that it ebbs and flows, expands and contracts, gives and takes, and is by its very nature somewhat unreliable. If we only feel gratitude when it serves our desires, this is not true thankfulness. No one is exempt from the twists and turns of fate, which may, at any time, take the possessions, situations, and people we love away from us. Ironically, it is sometimes this kind of loss that awakens us to a thankfulness that goes deeper than just being grateful when things go our way. Illness and near-miss accidents can also serve as wake-up calls to the deeper realization that we are truly lucky to be alive.

We do not have to wait to be shaken to experience this state of being truly thankful for our lives. Tuning in to our breath and making an effort to be fully present for a set period of time each day can do wonders for our ability to connect with true gratitude. We can also awaken ourselves with the intention to be more aware of the unconditional generosity of the life force that flows through us regardless of our circumstances.   Excerpted from the Daily Om  http://www.dailyom.com/articles/2010/26207.html

Gratitude isn’t something that we feel; it’s a something that I AM state of being. We can be disappointed that our desired outcome was elusive, or we can be grateful that we got the chance to try and learned some valuable lessons along the way. We can be angry that someone we trusted lied to us ,or we can be grateful that it didn't go on longer than it had to. We can be resentful of a lot of things and people that test our limits every day, or we can be grateful that they teach us more about ourselves. If you need another reason to give thanks at the dinner table on Thursday, how’s this: people who maintain an “attitude of gratitude” tend to be happier and healthier than those who don’t, according to a lengthy and instructive article in the Wall Street Journal.

The WSJ‘s Melinda Beck reports that adults who feel grateful have “more energy, more optimism, more social connections and more happiness than those who do not, according to studies conducted over the past decade. They’re also less likely to be depressed, envious, greedy or alcoholics.”

What the bulk of the research suggests is that gratitude should be chronic in order to make a lasting difference in well-being. Dr. Robert Emmons, professor of psychology at the University of California, Davis, and a pioneer in gratitude research, told the WSJ that in order to reap all of its benefits, feeling gratitude must be ingrained into your personality, and you must frequently acknowledge and be thankful for the role other people play in your happiness: “The key is not to leave it on the Thanksgiving table,” he said.

This is a perfect time of year to teach our children about being thankful. The Thanksgiving holiday will be quickly followed by Christmas. Both holidays bring many opportunities to create new family traditions that will bring the real meaning of thankfulness and gratitude to a personal level for our children.

Helping our children recognize and show appreciation for things they have learned to take for granted can take some time. Kids are never too young to start learning how to see and show thanks for the good things in their lives. Although Thanksgiving, by its name alone, makes us think about giving thanks we should teach our children - by example - that being thankful and telling others how much they are appreciated should happen every day.

Even in the midst of extremely challenging circumstances, we can find something to be thankful for. In addition to helping us cope with challenges, this kind of grateful attitude can be contagious and is a wonderful life lesson to share with our children. Learning to be truly grateful can change your life. 

"If the only prayer you said in your whole life was “Thank you”, that would suffice."  - Meister Eckhart

Overcoming Fear of Change: Step 4

Step 4 - Be flexible. Be flexible and available to take on any new task that might accompany the change.  Approach change with an open attitude of learning.  The more you know, the less you'll fear it.  Become an expert on that "new" thing.  Remember that it's just as much about the process as it is about the result, so enjoy the process.

If you’re on the fence about a big decision, then you might be worried about getting locked into a position that you can’t escape from.  Think about it a different way. New choices rarely limit your options.  In fact, new pursuits often open up even more opportunities. One of the best things about going after important goals with passion is that they open up chances and options that you never could have expected in the beginning.  If you pursue the interesting opportunities that arise along the path to your goal, then you can be sure that you’ll always have choices.  Excerpted from LifeHack.org

If you never start, you'll never get anywhere. You will fail, you will make mistakes, but that’s a part of the journey.  Failure is an inevitable way station on the journey to success.  Being flexible will allow you to wrap around, under, over and through the obstacles in your path.


“Every accomplishment starts with the decision to try.” – Unknown

 

 

 

Overcoming Fear of Change: Step 3

Step 3 - Stay positive. Fear can come from creating negative (or even catastrophic) scenarios about the future in your mind.  We often create so much negativity around something that it's important to step back and ask ourselves a few questions - What are my negative beliefs about this change?  How many times have I successfully navigated change in the past? What worked in how I handled the change?

Be curious, rather than being scared. Be curious about what a change would mean. And focus on the facts, instead of the worst-case scenarios you are congering in your head.  So often we worry more about getting rid of fear of change than learning how to live with it and move on.  Just accept that you can't control the external events in your life and embrace what you can control – your attitude.

Another way to stay positive is to reduce your stress. Meditation and spending time outdoors are great for that.  Doing either, our better yet both, will make you feel more calm, relaxed, and peaceful.

Remember that change is an opportunity. Have faith in yourself and your ability to be resilient.

 

Overcoming Fear of Change: Step 2

Step 2 - Acknowledge your fears. It may seem obvious, but acceptance of your own vulnerability is necessary to move through fear.  You need to learn how to use fear, instead of having fear use and control you.  Part of this acceptance is clarifying a few important facts in your own mind -

Accept that you’ll never have all the information
We often avoid making important decisions because we want more information before we make a tough call.  Research is important, but don't let it become a stalling tactic.  Make the best decision you can at the time and continue to move forward.

Trust yourself
We make all sorts of excuses for not making important changes, but the limiting belief that often underlies many of them is that we don’t trust ourselves.  We’re worried that the uncharted territory of the future will be too much for us to handle.  Think about it - you've dealt with unexpected change before.  And in the end, it probably all worked out fine.  Have faith that you can handle it again.

Anticipate the worst that could happen
I'm not suggesting that you dwell on it, but have a backup plan just-in-case.  Don't be caught like a deer in the headlights, be a Lara Croft or a MacGyver and troubleshoot your way through anything.  When you actually sit down and think about the worst case scenario, you’ll realize that there are actually very few risks that you can’t recover from.  Once you realize the worst isn’t that bad, you’ll be ready to crush it.

Accept your feelings and seek support
When you’re going through a transition, it is natural to feel uncomfortable.  Expect and accept your feelings and reach out to others to share your experiences, reactions, and emotions. Talking with your partner or your friends will make you feel better and remind you that you’re not alone.

Try this exercise: When you fear change, write down your fears on paper so you have them in an objective form and can stop dwelling on them. Then go through each one and jot down what you would do in the event that fear came to pass. Knowing you have a backup plan can be a key to navigating past the fear.

What is familiar is comfortable. Even though the familiar might be worse than the unfamiliar, we still tend to hold on to it, because going into the unknown is uncomfortable. Having the courage to go into the unfamiliar can be tough, but not impossible. It requires a shift in perspective. Become curious. Become an explorer of life. This is an adventure.


“Courage is the power to let go of the familiar.” – Raymond Lindquist

How To Change Your Life: Step 5

Step 5 - Enjoy the change. If you don’t do this, you might as well give it up. If the daily action feels tedious and chore-like, then you're doing it wrong. You've got to find a way to enjoy the change, or you won’t stick to it and make it a permanent habit. Habits can't be changed changed overnight - remember, it takes 30 days to 3 months to establish a new habit. Check out this TED talk to hear more.

It can be quite a process to change the way you have done things your entire life. Don’t give up and don’t get down on yourself if you aren’t always able to follow through. Consider each relapse a chance to learn what to do more effectively next time. Trust that change will happen when you really want it to.  You may doubt yourself when it comes to following to your heart, but the more you do it, the easier it becomes. The sooner you embrace an attitude of curiosity, the sooner you will start trusting yourself. So what if you make mistakes or relapse? Who cares?

Make a commitment to yourself and really find that motivation to make change a priority. Stick with it, and keep working to recondition behaviors. Notice what’s working and what’s not working. When it is not working, change your approach. Keep changing until you finally achieve what you are committed to.

What daily change will you make today?

“Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do.” – Benjamin Spock

How To Change Your Life: Step 4

Step 4 - Have consequences.  One of the best motivators for following through on your new daily habits is to have consequences.  These need to be determined by you, and be something significant enough to be a real motivator.  Maybe it's giving up something you really love (a series episode or a favorite food), donating to a cause you hate (opposing political candidate), or creating some sort of humiliation (singing karaoke to a crowd or dressing like a freak for a day).  Think of it as a type of "grounding" you had when you were a kid.  Remember, those tactics worked!
  The consequences can also be positive — a big reward each week if you don’t miss a day. Make the consequences bigger if you miss two straight days, and huge if you miss three.

"Nothing is worth doing unless the consequences may be serious." - George Bernard Shaw

Effective consequences need to be proactively built into the contract, and it's best to put them in writing. Post them. Review them and give general reminders when you sense that a little prevention could be valuable. 

Having consequences is also a great strategy in wise decision making. Remember that every single decision you have ever made, or will ever make, has consequences. Once you learn to evaluate your decisions based on consequences, all the other considerations fall neatly into place. All you need to do is think before you decide. Regardless of your past decision making abilities, you can quickly become a wise decision maker. This simple practice will help you avoid untold pain and regret.

What daily change will you make today?

"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences."  - P. J. O'Rourke

How To Change Your Life: Step 3

"And now we welcome the new year, full of things that have never been."   - Rainer Maria Rilke

Step 3 - Be accountable. How you do it don’t matter - you can post to Facebook or Twitter, email someone, mark it on a calendar, report in person - just make sure you’re accountable each and every day, not each month. If you get public with it, and know eyes are on you, you'll be more likely to stick with the change.  Having another person out there that is expecting you to be updating them on your success can make all the difference in how you plan to tackle those goals.

When we're accountable to someone else for doing what we've said we would do, we get stuff done.  When we tell our boss we are going to get that proposal done by the end of the week, we do it.  When we tell a client that we’ll write that report, we deliver.  When we promise our kids we’ll throw them a birthday party, we keep our word. However, when we tell ourselves – and no one else – that we’ll ask for that raise, quit smoking, or start exercising, we are less likely to do it. It can be as simple as asking a friend, a colleague, a spouse to help you.  Make sure you're specific in telling them - what you've committed to and what you'd like them to do if you don't follow through.

Accountability cultivates integrity and responsibility. It makes you face the truth and helps you to make the necessary changes in your life, and helps to make those changes more sustainable.

Another great way to make yourself accountable is to team up with someone with similar goals. Mutual accountability is extraordinarily effective, as demonstrated by groups like Weight Watchers and Alcoholics Anonymous. Another method is to use a website like StickK which helps you share your goals.  You can also put money on the line and designate the recipient of the money if you don't achieve your goal - it could be a friend, a charity you like, or even more motivating, a charity you hate.

What daily change will you make today?

"If I could give one tip for people - it's not an exercise or nutrition regimen. It's to walk your talk and believe in yourself, because at the end of the day, the dumbbell and diet don't get you in shape. It's your accountability to your word."   - Brett Hoebel

How To Change Your Life: Step 2

Step 2 - One Change at a Time. We need to accept that things don’t change overnight, that there’s nothing wrong with us, and that other people’s changes weren’t as easy as they might seem. A common element of failure to change is that we take on too much at once. Do yourself a favor and start with one change for a month before considering a second. Only add another change if you were successful at the first.

"If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading."  - Lao Tzu

As a society, we glorify huge life overhauls. TV shows like The Biggest Loser give us the impression that we can completely transform ourselves in a relatively short period of time. This kind of rapid change is not only unrealistic, but unsustainable.  The problem is that we tend to deceive ourselves  - "I'll start on Monday!" and "I'll never do that again!"  The biggest problem with these types of self deceptions is that they don't really address the problem. The focus is on the end result instead of on the individual habits we need to change in order to transition from our current lifestyle to the lifestyle we actually want. And that’s the key: transition. The single biggest reason our attempts to change fail is because we don't give ourselves the time needed to transition.

So, start small.  Remember, one change at a time.  The time you spend daily can be as little as 10 minutes, but commit to it every day.  And try and stick with the same time every day.  This is often how our minds works with habit anyway, and makes it just that much easier to remember a new routine.

What daily change will you make today?

 

"A year from now you will wish you had started today." - Karen Lamb 

How To Change Your Life: Step 1

As the end of the year approaches, I'm beginning to reassess where I am with my goals for the year.  Did I actively work towards them?  What were my successes, and failures?  What changes do I want in my life in 2014?  Who do I want to be?

We are what we repeatedly do everyday – our habits.  We have positive habits, that empower us and are aligned with our goals, and we had bad, or even destructive habits, that prevent us from having the success and happiness we want. Most people don’t know that it takes at least 21 days to create a habit.  Most of us haven’t consciously created the habits we currently have.  We often just inherited habits from our peers or developed them at an early age.  

But, what if you could consciously create new habits that would compound over a period of time and transform your life?  The answer is - You can.  Ask yourself - What is something that I want to change in your life? What am I unhappy with? What would I like to add to my life that would enhance it? Whatever that area is, if you want to create lasting change, you need to make a commitment to consistently condition yourself the way you want to be for at least 30 days for it to become habitual.

Start by asking yourself - What do I want to be?  Write it down.  You can set a goal you'd like to achieve in a week, a year, or 10 years from now, but the you must make a daily change, or you'll never establish new habits to achieve your goal. You can make daily and monthly goals too and the steps to achieve your ultimate goals, but you must daily changes. The truth is, if you’re not willing to make it a daily change, you don’t really want to change your life in this way. 

So ask yourself - If my life had absolutely no limits and I could have it all and do whatever I wanted, what would I choose to have and what would I choose to do? Describe your ideal lifestyle. List what you would do throughout the day if you knew that you were bound to be successful, what kind of person you would be, how much money you would earn, and where you would live. This question allows you to realize who you would truly want to be if there were no limits. Establish a clear and specific outcome.

So, do you know who you really want to be?  OK then, now let's talk about how to get there...

Step 1 - Select specific patterns to break and replace with new behavior
When you decide that you’re not going to stand for your current situation any longer, then it’s time to devise a plan to change your behavior. The first step is to replace the old habits with new, healthy behavior. Whenever you feel the urge to engage in your old habits or are in a situation that triggers the behavior, incorporate your new behavior pattern. For example, maybe you have a drink every night when you come home from work, and want to slow down. When you come home you need something to replace that simple habit of going to the fridge and pouring a glass of wine or beer. You must have something to fill the void and minimize initial feeling that you're missing out. What new behavior can you introduce to replace your old habit?  Can you introduce a new habit you'd like to form - some stepping stone towards achieving your larger goals - into this gap?  Maybe your goal is to get fit, or start a creative hobby. This is a great chance to not only fill the void, but eliminate your initial feelings of loss.

What daily change will you make today?

"When you lose something in your life, stop thinking it's a loss for you... it is a gift you have been given so you can get on the right path to where you are meant to go, not to where you think you should have gone."  - Suze Orman

Tea Time #2

I love taking the time to enjoy a cup of tea.  There's something inherently calming about imbibing a warm cup of herbal essence.  Even more enjoyable, is when the tea in question has a meaningful bit of wisdom or inspiration attached to it, as do the Good Earth varieties.  Today's quote is:

"Art is either plagiarism or revolution."  - Paul Gauguin

Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin was a French Post-Impressionist painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramist, and writer.  He was an important figure in the Symbolist movement, and his experimentation was indicative of the Synthetist style of modern art. He also paved the way to the appreciation of primitivism. Gauguin styled himself and his art as "savage." Although he began his artistic career with the Impressionists in Paris, during the late 1880's he fled farther and farther from urban civilization in search of an edenic paradise where he could create pure, "primitive" art. Yet his self-imposed exile to the South Seas was not so much an escape from Paris as a bid to become the new leader of the Parisian avant-garde. Gauguin's rejection of his European family, society, and the Paris art world for a life apart, in the land of the "Other," has come to serve as a romantic example of the artist-as-wandering-mystic.

 

Lessons from the Wild #7

flex·i·ble (adjective)

1. capable of being bent, usually without breaking; easily bent: a flexible ruler.
2. susceptible of modification or adaptation; adaptable: a flexible schedule.
3. willing or disposed to yield; pliable: a flexible personality.

 

 

Resistance to change is found at the heart of all conflicts, both internal and external.  Yet in nature things seem to evolve without any attachment to what was.  Nature has many lessons to teach us, and one of them is about flexibility in the midst of change.  The basic principle of the universe we live in is evolution – change with growth.  So if change and growth are in harmony with nature, it explains why resistance is painful.  When it come to growth, flexibility is a much better strategy than resistance.

 

"Nothing is softer or more flexible than water, yet nothing can resist it."  - Lao Tzu 

We are often faced with situations where things don’t turn out quite the way we want. The best way to survive these unwanted variations is to be flexible. Adapt to the change. Be creative. A flexible person will be conscious enough to know when they need to be rigid, but a rigid person will probably not be conscious enough to know when they need to be flexible. 

 

Learn to know when a situation requires flexibility. Once again, nature is a great teacher.

 

At work - Be like a hummingbird.  Hummingbirds build nests with specific material to allow them to be both flexible and stable, which allows the nest to expand as the babies grow.  They  also need to be strong enough to weather storms.  Likewise, a leader has to pay attention to building and leading an organization that is flexible enough to “go with the flow” when needed and stable enough to withstand the storms that come their way.

 

At home - Be like a tree.  Trees combines both strength and flexibility.  Because trees bend with the wind, instead of trying to resist it, they can weather a storm without breaking. So too, we don’t need to get bent out of shape about conflict or change. Use the situation as an opportunity to learn, and grow.

 

Remember to be one with the nature of change. Be flexible. Don’t stick to something that doesn’t work.   

 

“Planning is helpful. If you don’t know what you want, you’ll seldom get it. But, no matter how well you plan, you will fare better if you expect the unexpected. The unexpected, by nature, comes unseen, unthought, unenvisioned. All you can do is plan to go unplanned, prepare to be unprepared, make going with the flow part of your agenda, for the most successful among us envision, plan, and prepare, but cast all aside as needed, while those who are unable to go with the flow often suffer, if they survive.”   - David W. Jones, Moses and Mickey Mouse: How to Find Holy Ground in the Magic Kingdom and Other Unusual Places  

How to be Creative for Life

Creativity is our life force. It's a wonderful, playful part of our being. All you have to do is remember back to when you were a kid - all those magical adventures where it was effortless. Break the pattern of the typical fear-based and reactive approach where you're looking for what will go wrong. The shift is simple - ask yourself "How can I bring more creativity to this challenge?”

Even creative people have one of “those days” where they just don’t feel creative. It's even tougher for someone working to re-tap into their creativity. The next time you need a boost to your creativity, try one of these tips. 

Learn Something - Constantly learning keeps you fresh, and inspires new creative thinking. Take a class, read a book, research a topic online, watch a webinar or YouTube video, whatever.  Learning something outside of your area is a great way to get the creativity flowing as well. 

Get Out - Leave the house, office, studio, or cubicle.  Get out of town, or even the country.  It doesn’t matter so much what you do or where you go, just the change of scenery helps get you out of your own head. With a fresh perspective or new point of view comes fresh ideas. Looking at new things can help you see old things in a new way.  It's great to make a habit of "getting out" of your routine at least once a day to keep the creative juices flowing.

Always carry a small notebook with you - Don't expect to remember all your great ideas. When you're struck by one, quickly write it down. If you don't, chances are you won't remember it later. They may not all be good, but they'll all help you in the end.

Read - As much as you can, about everything possible. Books exercise your brain, provide inspiration and fill you with information that allows you to make more creative connections.

Surround yourself with creative people - Interesting and creative people gravitate towards one another. Talking, and listening, to someone else is an excellent way to see a problem differently, re-think your ideas or find a new solution. Go to a presentation or lecture by someone you admire, or about a topic that seems interesting. Some of the freshest ideas are inspired by things that are entirely unrelated to the problem at hand.

Don’t be a workaholic – Take breaks. Your mind needs a chance to wind down so it doesn’t overheat and crash.

Spend time with children - Your own or someone else's. Tap back into childhood.

Get closer to nature – So many studies have shown how rejuvenating and inspiring nature is. Whether it's a weekend backpacking trip, a jog on the beach, or lunch in the park, it all helps.


And last but not least

Reward Your Curiosity - One common roadblock to developing creativity is the sense that curiosity is an indulgence. Rather than reprimanding yourself, reward yourself when you're curious about something. Give yourself the opportunity to explore new topics.

"The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover is yourself."   - Alan Alda

 

Creativity Can Keep the Spark Alive in Your Relationships

This might seem obvious, or perhaps you have never thought about creativity being a guiding force in happy, satisfying relationships. The truth is that people in relationships (especially long term ones) have a tendency to get into routines with one another. And, let’s be honest, relationships can become dull if the people involved don’t make that extra effort to enhance the time they spend together. Sure, we all become comfortable with our significant other, and comfort can be a good thing, but so can spontaneity, which springs from creativity.  

Can relationships be more than places to settle in for a life of predictability or a struggle for part of what you want?  The answer is "Yes!"  

 
Co-creativity  There's a new train of thought about co-creativity in relationships - one in which you both flow in combined creative ways that enhance the vitality of each.  In order to do this, there are attitudes to avoid or drop, and attitudes and practices to take up. Each time you come into a relationship interaction with openness and a willingness to grow, you pave the way for co-creating.  Make the conscious decision that you don't need to be right, and put your focus on generating love, joy and gratitude in all your relationships.

Play!  Play is one of the most effective tools for keeping relationships fresh and exciting. Playing together for the fun of it brings joy, vitality, and resilience. Play can also heal resentments, disagreements, and hurts. Through regular play, we learn to trust one another and feel safe. Trust enables us to work together, open ourselves to intimacy, and try new things. By making a conscious effort to incorporate more humor and play into your daily interactions, you can improve the quality of your love relationships, as well as your connections with coworkers, family members, and friends. Play teaches us how to cooperate with each other.  It's also simultaneously a source of relaxation and stimulation for the brain and body. When we play with other people, whether they’re friends or strangers, we're reminded that we're not alone in this world. We can connect to others in delightful and meaningful ways that banish loneliness.  (excerpted from HelpGuide.org)

Despite the power of play, somewhere between childhood and adulthood, many of us stop playing. We exchange play for work and responsibilities. When we do have some leisure time, we're more likely to zone out in front of the TV or computer than to engage in creative, brain-stimulating play. By giving ourselves permission to play with the joyful abandon of childhood, we can continue to reap its benefits throughout life.

Keep the spark alive and learn how to play again!

"Playology is about waking up our senses, infusing our organs of seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, tasting - and the higher cognitive senses as well, with the spirit of play. Play ignites creativity and spontaneity. Playing together leads to trust and cooperation."  - Ellie Katz

How You Kill Your Creativity Every Day – and How to Stop It

Are you feeling "stuck" and uninspired?  Creativity is on the decline, and you're not the only one.  Two of the main reasons people allow this to happen is because they don't believe it's important, or because they're scared. But, no matter your age or what you do, it’s vital to have more creativity in your life.

There are many things we do daily, bad habits we've formed, that get us to this state.  The first step is acknowledging that there's a problem and then recognizing what we're doing wrong.  

30 things you probably do every day that kill your creativity

• Blindly follow your habits
• Don't trust your intuition
• Get distracted by your "clutter"
• Stop being curious
• Compare yourself 
• Skip physical exercise
• Get overwhelmed by information - "analysis paralysis"
• Don’t take action
• Follow trends
• Buy things pre-made and pre-packaged 
• Overly plan 
• Avoid time alone 
• Adhere to standards 
• Fear ambiguity
• Only take on creative projects that are hugely ambitious
• Don't question things
• Never try anything you haven't tried before
• Get discouraged by unsupportive comments from others
• Behave like a grown-up
• Spend too much time on your mobile device
• Watch too much TV
• Don't hand-write 
• Get trapped by false limits
• Stay tight in your comfort zone
• Be critical of yourself and others
• Avoid taking action
• Always think the way you've always thought
• Don't waste time recording ideas or making notes
• Avoid mistakes
• Don't embarrass yourself
  
  

One thing you should also recognize is that it really isn't your fault.  Our educational system and society in general are often not supportive of creativity, so it's no wonder that we do things - intentionally or not - to kill it.  So now that you know this, what can you do to stop?
  
Change your habits - Small changes in your habits really can make big changes in your creativity.  Every time you make yourself do something a little different than before, you're expanding your creativity. Think of the ways you kill your creativity most and start there.  Be conscious of your attitude. Over time, you'll find you develop a "how can I do this differently today?" way of thinking.

Spend 20-30 minutes each day on a creative exercise - Or 10 if it's all you can manage.  Look around you and pick something interesting, or not interesting at all.  Now, think of 10 ways that it can be improved upon.  Write it down.  The "thing" can be silly - a new name for the sandwich you're eating, the revised tag line on a billboard advertisement, whatever.  You could also spend the time drawing, or writing poetry, or playing an instrument.  Feel free to do something different every day, but do something.

Tapping back into your creativity takes practice.  But with some time, and diligence, you'll be amazed at how it comes back.

"Creativity, as has been said, consists largely of rearranging what we know in order to find out what we do not know. Hence, to think creatively, we must be able to look afresh at what we normally take for granted."  - George Kneller

Expand You Creativity at Work

Many people think creativity and business don’t go together. The thought is that business is a practical pursuit, while creativity is indulgent and prone to chaos, which is the antithesis of what we want our businesses to be. This is a matter of how creativity has been defined for us.

The first mistake people make is misunderstanding the creative process. We think of it as something that is haphazard. A creative person waits around for an inspiration to hit and can do nothing until that happens. Many artists are guilty of furthering this misconception because it makes their lives seem that much more romantic and dramatic. The truth is that the most creative artists are the ones who simply produce art, all the time, without waiting for the muse to whisper in their ear.

The second mistake is thinking that creativity is reserved for gifted people and not available to us run-of-the-mill human beings. The truth is that everyone is creative. If it seems otherwise, it's simply because someone, somewhere along the way, convinced us that we weren’t.  By believing in this un-truth, we limit our joy and become more close-minded.

Reawakening our creativity is fairly easy once we realize it isn’t dead, we've simply put it to sleep. By increasing our awareness - allowing our self to see when we've come up with a creative idea, or solved a problem creatively, or dealt with a troublesome individual in a creative way - we can reawaken our creativity and begin to grow.

So, what does this have to do with business? What is a business besides a mechanism to make money by solving a particular problem?  That's exactly it!  Expanding our creativity at work allows us to be better problem solvers.  Creativity is required to first see the problem that needs solving. Then, it's required to devise a solution.  Once you know you're creative, begin to waken it up, you will see that your business life will begin to explode in unexpected and wonderful ways.

Another problem with losing our creativity at work is that work it becomes dull, the daily grind, something we dread going to every day. So how can we get back to that excitement?  Here are a couple tips to get you started -

Daydream - It's here that our great ideas show up. As an exercise, for 1 week, set aside 5 minutes a day to just to sit back and daydream. After a week of this, you'll notice that you have more energy, your ideas are beginning to flow again and you may even find you have new, creative ways to solve the latest problems or issues you’re encountering. It isn’t magic, it’s just you allowing the communication to your subconscious mind to open back up again.

Matrix Brainstorming - This is a simple yet incredibly productive ways to generate new ideas.  Start off with a blank sheet of paper.  On the top of your page, write a question which is the concept you're wanting to generate ideas for. For example, a question like “How can I increase sales?”. Think about your question for a moment, then give yourself 10 minutes to come up with 20 answers to your question. You must come up with 20 answers no matter what. The first 7-10 answers will be extremely easy to come up with, but then naturally it will start to get more difficult. If you find your mind is completely blank, don’t stop. Stay patient and come up with everything and anything you can. Once you have your 20 ideas, its time to turn this into a matrix by adding a new layer of ideas. This means that for every answer you had to your question, you will find 5-7 specific and unique ways of achieving and implementing that answer. This may also require some serious thinking, but will be well worth it. Once you’ve completed the exercise, you will have over 100 ideas to your question. All done in the space of 30 minutes or less! Using this technique consistently will help you to generate lots of ideas extremely quickly, and naturally. You will find your mind is a lot sharper and your concentration, memory, and focus will be greatly improved. Try the exercise and see for yourself. 

"First comes thought; then organization of that thought, into ideas and plans; then transformation of those plans into reality. The beginning, as you will observe, is in your imagination." - Napoleon Hill

Tiny Ways to Be Creative Every Day

cre·a·tiv·i·ty  (noun)

1. the state or quality of being creative.
2. the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, etc.; originality, progressiveness, or imagination: the need for creativity in modern industry; creativity in the performing arts.
3. the process by which one utilizes creative ability:

Feeling uninspired, bored, depressed or just generally "stuck"? Maybe you need a creative boost get get you back on track.

Don't think you're creative? Take this fun creativity quiz and find out.

Start thinking about the what's, who's, when's, where's, why's and how's of creativity.

What's your goal?
Would you like to be more creative in solving problems at home, or in your work?   Do you want to pursue an artistic hobby?  Do you want to be a better storyteller at parties?  It could be all the above.  The best way to reach your goal is to define it.  It’s not enough to be creative, you have to be creative at something. Creativity is doing, rather than being. The doing comes from discovering goals, and achieving them. To discover what your goals are, you need to ask yourself questions.The questions you ask aren’t important. However, it is important that they be open-ended questions. That is, that they have more than one answer, and that they lead to other questions.  Asking yourself questions opens you to possibilities. Then, experiment with the answers you come up with. If you do this playfully, you'll not only  have fun, but you’ll improve your life in all kinds of ways.

Who inspires you? 
A family member, friend, mentor, boss, writer, artist, musician, etc.  Write down why each of them have inspired you, and what you've learned or what you are still learning or enjoying about them.

When + where can you designate time for creativity?
It can be morning, evening, on the bus, during your lunch hour, whenever.  It doesn't have to be long, but pick a time to explore your creativity every day and stick with it. 

Why is it important to access your creativity? 
Because the energy of creativity is fundamental to everything that we are. Creativity can manifest itself in so many ways - your work, your relationships, and most importantly in your own mind and spirit.  The great news is that the more you use it the more it will blossom.

But I still don't understand how to start!
Just find a way. Buy a small notebook and write anything you think of - a thought, a song lyric, a silly idea, whatever. Try cooking a new recipe. Write a haiku - they're super easy!  Make a crazy doodle of your pet or coworker.  Try something new.  Anything. 

Here are more great suggestions.

Have fun!