Are you ever at work and the task that you're handling just flows and gets done without much effort? It's almost as if your brain and creativity just explode and you slice through the task with ease. That feeling, the flow, is an awesome feeling but how often do you have it? Wouldn't it be great if you could somehow bottle that feeling and release it when you need it most? Easier said than done.
There are probably a lot of variables that go into achieving this feeling and like most things, they are totally different for everyone. However, with a little thought, most of us can most likely identify a handful of things that help promote their inner creativity. Here are 11 tips I've found to work. If you have other steps or rituals, let us know!
Are you using the right medium to communicate your work and message? Your medium is the outlet that you communicate with. This can be a nurse, writer, speaker, artist, etc. Maybe you have the message right but it's not being shared through the right medium. This happens to lots of super creative people who find themselves in jobs they don't like with lots of restrictions. Creativity knows no limits. Try a new outlet and see if your creativity improves.
Just go ahead and start writing. Know before you begin that this will be the worst thing you have ever created; it's then impossible to be disappointed. More often than not, as you get moving, creative ideas will come to you and it is nowhere near as bad as you first pictured. Sometimes you just need to have the courage to take that first step towards creating what you desire.
Say to yourself "I will work on this for 1 hour" or "I will write a minimum of 500 words before standing up". We can't always be creative but every single one of us can make ourselves work on something for a set period of time as short as one hour.
Start creating whatever is in your mind; writer's block is often overcome this way. If you sit there for 30 minutes and nothing is coming, you're not going to get anything. Get up and do something that you love. Go for a walk, calm and center yourself, play with your kids, meditate. There is always a way. As I read in a fortune cookie once, "Many a bad move is made by standing still". Those 30 minutes have at least been spent moving towards creating rather than stagnating doing nothing.
Whenever I feel like I'm in a creative rut I sing or dance. Take some time to just totally let yourself go. Put on a song that you love and sing and dance to it and you'll get yourself out of all those negative thought patterns and in a really positive place. Really let yourself go. One way to get to a new level is to sing louder than you ever have done before. It leaves you feeling amazing and creativity just flows after that. WARNING: You might want to vacuum your house while singing this loud. It saves other people's ears and is super productive too!
I find that your best ideas come will come to you when your mind is still. When you're too deep into a project struggling to get creative, it makes sense to have a mental reboot every 30-60 minutes. Just go for a walk. Get some fresh air into your lungs and a change of scenery.
Creativity comes in ebbs and flows. Some days you might just be so uptight and tense that you need to take the day off. It's not unproductive because rest is essential to gear yourself up for the days when you really exert yourself. If you have the opportunity spend time with friends, family or doing something you love just for the sake of it. You'll come back to it tomorrow with a fresh mind and fresh ideas.
Do you sometimes find it tough to get creative because you feel like you just don't have enough hours in the day? I get it all the time. Truly deep creative thoughts don't usually come to you within the first 30 minutes of creating something, they come as you dive deeper into it after spending at least one hour there. It's tough to get that deep without the time.
What would benefit you is to set aside a few hours to become a master of your time. Batch similar tasks all in one, start reducing pointless internet browsing, etc. Then you'll be able to experience deep creative flow once again.
I see babies as naturally creative. They know no limits and no fears. Watch a baby for a while and see how they just do things. They are totally focused in this moment, not at all held prisoner by their past. Imitate their aliveness by spending time with them and you will find beautiful ideas flowing through you that you never thought you could access before. This leads me to the next tip ...
Being in the moment is without question the best thing you can do for creativity. If you are thinking about the past, you are limited by it. By being here and present you have access to all the precious gifts that you have now. This is a process of concentrating the mind and the best way for this is through meditation.
You hear meditation defined a lot of ways but it is really just concentrating, which is concentrating your mind on this moment. Practice concentrating 100% on reading this article until the end or the feeling of the keys you are typing. Life is a meditation practice and opportunities are everywhere. The creative benefits can only really be experienced, they're fantastic that's all I can say. It's a whole new level of living.
Sometimes, we spend too much time indoors between the four walls of our homes and at our desk and lose touch with our natural roots. Long spells in natural environments refresh the spirit. Nature is the ultimate creative inspiration. Have you ever looked out across a still river or up at the skies on a dark night and just been awe-struck? They're the beautiful experiences that life is made of. Doing this will invigorate your spirit, body and mind so they are all fresh and aligned towards creativity once again.
Written on 5/6/2010 by Richard Shelmerdine. Richard writes passionately about his love of spirituality and self improvement over at RichardShelmerdine.com.
Unique Ways To Access Your Natural Creativity
Posted by SoMeOnE at 8:31 AM Labels: Business, Entrepreneur, How To, Writing
The Hard Truths About Building Your Own Success
Posted by SoMeOnE at 8:39 AM Labels: Career, Entrepreneur, Success
Have you noticed that society often looks at successful people in hopes of somehow copying their magic formula? I know I have done this and fallen into the trap - the trap of thinking, praying even, that there is one magic solution for success and that it can be replicated by anyone with enough sheer will and desire. Clearly this is not true.
I don't want to miscommunicate here; of course it makes sense to learn lessons from people who have achieved the goals we want. They did something right and some of their ingredients may indeed work in your success recipe too. As Tony Robbins says: "Success leaves clues".
Clues however are not the entire story and as mentioned above, this is your success plan. Realizing this and taking full responsibility for yourself makes a huge difference. Look at you, your desires, your abilities, and with that, your chances of actually being successful increase substantially.
Here are some key realizations that I believe you should consider along your path to success. Take one, or a few, and if they are counter to your current beliefs debate yourself on how this view impacts your plan.
By seeing through some of the illusions bandied around about success we can get clear on what we need to do and see the wood for the trees. Things become much easier once we take responsibility for our own success.
Sometimes we have a warped way of looking at success as a magic formula to be cracked. Life in this ‘post magic formula cracking’ world is easy, abundant, problem free, but completely illusionary. The other point is that successful people have put the effort into achieving their success. Most of the time success hasn’t fallen into their lap. To achieve success in any area of life we need to put one foot in front of the other and move towards our goal.
Life is never solved. Recently, I have started working on a self employed basis as a mentor. I have wanted to be self employed for a very long time, particularly doing work I love like mentoring, and it is great to finally do that. However, I have realized that success often brings new sets of challenges that we might not have previously thought about! I am acutely aware of being grateful for where I now am, but also aware now that I am here that there is no magical place to get to! Doing what you love everyday is great but it is not problem free.
While the end result may be a great new product, website, or service, it's the process of developing that idea that often builds your character and provides the most learning opportunities. Look back on something significant you have achieved. Now look at the lessons you learned along the way. Would you really swap them so you could have fast forwarded to the result? However difficult things may be it has made us who we are today.
As society speeds up and we have more gadgets and technology to make life easier, we are getting used to quick fixes. If we don’t achieve something quickly we think it’s not worth achieving or that it is taking too long. Life isn’t a race. We don’t get a badge for the speed at which we travel through life. I sometimes find myself falling into that trap with my blog - thinking it should be more developed or have more subscribers. When I catch myself thinking like this, I try and take a step back and remind myself about what I enjoy about what I am doing and that building anything worthwhile takes time.
Following on from my last point, there is no ‘quick fix’. Anything worthwhile does take time. We need to learn to develop the skills of being persistent and keeping the bigger picture in mind. I think this is why people sometimes say that personal development books don’t work. What they are forgetting is that the missing link is hard work. Reading a book or going to a seminar alone will not change our life. Knowledge, taking action, inserting inspiration, hard work and patience is what will make the difference.
It is for us alone to find our passion. No one can teach us their passion. Others can help us find our passion and can also share their experiences in a way that can help us find our own but our passion is fundamentally different for each of us. Our passion is a unique cocktail of our own inner whisperings, life experiences and individual skills and talents. It is our job to try new experiences in order to hunt our passion(s) down. For example, I didn’t realize I had a passion for blogging till I stumbled across the blogosphere last year whilst setting up my website for my coaching services.
By all means, enlist the help of good mentors and learn from others who are further along a similar path. But, remember that we all have a unique path and it is our job to work out how to bring that to the fore. Sometimes the reason we look to others for the answer to ‘success’ is because we don’t trust ourselves. We don’t trust ourselves to do our own thing, to take a risk and to shine. We need to learn to trust ourselves. Start today, listen to what your intuition is saying and start doing what feels right for you. 
Written on 4/28/2010 by Jennifer Smith. Jen is a Life Coach and Personal Development blogger who can be found at Reach Our Dreams. You can connect with Jen on Twitter @reachourdreams or if you liked this article then why not subscribe to her RSS Feed?
7 Profound Lessons From 7 of our Historical Leaders
Posted by SoMeOnE at 2:32 AM Labels: Business, Entrepreneur, Goals, Leadership, Motivation
Leaders aren’t necessarily special. They don’t wear a halo and they certainly don’t glow in the dark. Leaders are just the individuals who are further along the path that you’re traveling. Because leaders have traveled the path successfully, they are able to provide insights into the journey so by absorbing the lessons they have learned, one would think that with application, your path may be simpler.
Today I want to take a look at seven amazing lessons from seven amazing leaders. These lessons are intended to give us insight into our journey, as well as provide us with some much needed motivation. As you will see, these seven leaders are from differing backgrounds, but their message is similar.
As a sidenote, there are hundreds of leaders out there so if your favorite isn't listed, add it in the comment section below this post. With that, let’s get right to it.
Thank you for reading and be sure to pass this article along!"Every artist was first an amateur." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
As the Scripture says, “Despise not the day of small beginnings...Although thy beginning be small, thy latter end shall greatly increase.” It’s important that we remember that Rome was not built in a day. There are no overnight successes.
Success happens over years, and only to those who are consistently consistent.
Every “somebody” was once a “nobody;” everyone starts “small,” but if you’re focused, and if you’re steady, one day, you will be “big.”"Just do what you do best."- Red Auerbach
Learn what you do best, and focus on that! If you wrote a book that only sold one copy after five years, then maybe writing’s not your "thing." Discover your true passion and dedicate your life to doing that task to the very best of your ability. That’s what success is. Success is not buying a Rolls Royce; success is doing the best with the talents that you’ve been given. It's playing the card you've been dealt to the very best of your ability."Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude."- Thomas Jefferson
I know its cliché but your attitude really does determine your altitude. Having a negative perspective is like walking through life with dark shades on; you don’t see as clearly and you miss opportunities that are right in front of you. In essence, you are your own worst enemy.
It’s critical that you keep a positive mental attitude, it’s critical that you believe in your possibilities. Frank Loyd Wright said, “The thing always happens that you really believe in; and the belief in a thing makes it happen.” So always believe that you will succeed."We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit."-Aristotle
Your life is a collection of your habits. If you succeed, it will be because over the course of your life you’ve collected habits that cause success. Your habits will take you further than your education. Robert Collier said, “Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.”"Man, alone, has the power to transform his thoughts into physical reality; man, alone, can dream and make his dreams come true."-Napoleon Hill
What you constantly ponder you will eventually become. You must see where you want to be. The clear vision of your desire gives you the motivation to make it happen. This works positively or negatively. If you consistently think about gambling, you’ll eventually try it. If you consistently think about providing value, you will eventually provide it.
It all starts with the vision that you glorify in your mind."A goal properly set is halfway reached."-Abraham Lincoln
Are you working towards your goals? A person without a goal is like a car without an engine; it ain’t going nowhere. You must have a goal, and you must constantly work towards the achievement of that goal. You must constantly move in the direction of that goal. Conrad Hilton said “Success…seems to be connected with action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don’t quit.”“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”-Mark Twain
You only live once, you only get one bite at the apple, I suggest you go after your dreams. Helen Keller said life is either a daring adventure or nothing! So live the life you’ve always imagined, explore, follow your passion, and in the end, you will have no regrets.
Written on 4/15/2010 by Mr. Self Development who is a motivational author that offers a practical guide to success and wealth; support him by visiting his blog at mrselfdevelopment.com or by subscribing to his feed.