8 Ways To Boost Your Creativity

An inspiring short article by Dr Jennifer Howard...

No matter how much we enjoy what we are doing in our life and in our business, there are times when we all find ourselves in need of a creativity jump-start.  Here is a list of tactics that you can use when you simply need a little creative jump-start. 

1. Bring an object of beauty into the room in which you are trying to be creative that inspires you. Choose an object of art or flowers that you find inspiring.  

2. If you are trying to jump start writing or painting a picture, look outside at the landscape or some bright colors to shift your energy and focus.

3. Read words of inspiration. Find your favorite book that inspires you and open it to a random page. Before you do this, ask for guidance and whatever you need to hear for the day.

4. Look at what you’re working on upside down. A new, fresh perspective can get your mind going. So, turn your paper, notebook or picture sideways or upside down and see what new things you notice and what ideas pop forth.

5. Try using your non-dominant hand. When you try to use your non-dominant hand, it engages the other side of your brain and sparks start to fly!

6. Get up and move, stretch, take a walk. Exercise of any kind stimulates the right and left hemispheres of our brain and helps increase our focus and creativity.

7. Be silent. First you might need to allow your chatty mind to wind down. Sometimes the simple act of first making a to-do list helps the mind and nervous system wind down. Then sitting in some type of silence and meditation helps reach that deeper place and stimulates creativity.

8. Dig deep inside yourself and think about what are you passionate about right now. What is your impulse? What is your driving force?  What must be said? What are you aching to say or do?  What wants to spring forth?  Just start writing your ideas and thoughts.  Don't try to formulate sentences or paragraphs or worry about punctuation.  Just let the ideas flow freely from you.  The simple act of not being confined by writing standards can allow many ideas to spring forward.

Click Here for Some Great Tools to Quickly and Easily 
Sharpen Your Mind...

For more information contact us now
Email: Info@MindfullyChange.com
Our website: MindfullyChange.com
Follow Us On Twitter: @MindfullyChange
Phone: +1 (321) 214-5824

25 Quick Tips to Improve Your Brain

1. Invent and share a refreshing solution to a stubborn work problem – solve a  difficulty that leaves you bored or in a rut at work. Brain fact: Boredom is more a habit formed in brains, and shaped by daily choices,  then stored in brain as a reality.

2. Uplift your work area with natural lighting.  Brain fact: Environments influence brainpower, and a healthy workplace inspires people to transform problems into solutions.

3. Thank a fellow worker for a personal accomplishment.  Brain fact: Well being comes partially from and is fueled by serotonin chemical hormones that accompany acts of kindness.

4. Give somebody the gift of forgiveness, and let go of a grudge. Brain fact: Anger, fear, and frustration  are fueled by harmful cortisol chemical hormones that come with rancor.

5. Propose alternatives to an annoying habit or flawed practice.  Brain fact: Venting is bad for the brain and creates new neuron pathways to many  more  complaints.

6. Act like the person you want others to see in you, and that person you’ll become. Brain fact: Dendrite brain cells use the outside world to take their shapes, and grow new connections based on what you do each day.

7. Vary your background sounds so that you add music for more motivation. Brain fact: Music changes brain wave speeds in ways that impact moods and alter your productivity.

8. Stir curiosity and engage others around you.  Brain fact: Lectures and talks work against listener brains, and benefit speaker intelligence only, while failing  to benefit from listener insights.

9. Shift routines up daily with lived diversity. Brain fact: Hebbian workers rewire daily for ruts and routines that kill incentives, limit focus or even shrink their brains from stress.

10. Include differences as assets.  Brain fact: Common diversity training tends to fail participants  mentally,  by painting inclusion as a deficit model – rather than as assets added through differences.

11. Sleep well in order to perform well. Brain fact: Brain waves can bring either sleep or peak performance, based on how you activate and manage them.

12. Research and open mentally to new and different ideas daily. Brain fact: Hook even difficult facts onto one thing you know and learning increases in less time.

13. Change on regular basis.  Brain fact: Your brain’s basal ganglia stores old facts and creates ruts, while working memory holds few new facts and leads change.

14. Survey and engage more strengths. Brain fact: Multiple intelligences are common to all, used by few, and can be cultivated daily with regular use as mental tools.

15. Create rather than criticize. Brain fact: Cynical or critical mindsets literally block creativity, limit talent in you or others, and stomp out innovation.

16. List key facts as guides and reminders.  Brain fact: Memory can be outsourced to help you remember more, and to free your mind to focus fully on tasks in the moment.

17. Inspire novel young ideas. Brain fact: Plasticity enables people of all ages and backgrounds to rewire their brains in ways that prosper from young and agile acumen.

19. Encourage yourself and others often.  Brain fact: Encouragement changes the chemistry of a brain through raised serotonin, and ratchets up tone for profitability.

19. Communicate with care, openness and honesty. Brain fact: Meta messages destroy relationships through implications that  differ from actual messages spoken.

20. Integrate projects from ideas and people across many fields. Brain fact: It often takes an integration of  hard and soft skills to solve problems with the brain in mind.

21. Relax and practice letting worries go.  Brain fact:  Stress literally shrinks the brain, and anxious tones in communication act as silent brainpower killers.

22. Seek genuine and lasting relationships at work. Brain fact: Greet  colleagues through speaking people’s names, to offer spike in well being or awareness in person’s brain.

23. Risk innovative progress,  one step at a time.  Brain fact: Inspire creativity and invention through teaching others cutting edge approaches, at the same time you develop them.

24. Collaborate for stellar solutions. Brain fact: Create new neuron pathways through collective brainpower,  to facilitate democratic  solutions to workplace  problems.

25. Celebrate gender proclivities. Brain fact: Women’s and men’s brain differ biologically and intellectually, for instance,  in ways that few optimize.

For more information contact us now
Email: Info@MindfullyChange.com
Our website: MindfullyChange.com
Follow Us On Twitter: @MindfullyChange
Phone: +1 (321) 214-5824


http://xr.com/Blg25Btps

MindfullyChange in the News

Listen to my recent 5-minute interview with Global Talk Radio...Just click here to listen to the Interview

Click On the Picture of the Mic to Enjoy the Interview

For more information contact us now
Email: Info@MindfullyChange.com
Our website: MindfullyChange.com
Follow Us On Twitter: @MindfullyChange
Phone: +1 (321) 214-5824

Who Are You Being?

Be understanding to your enemies.
Be loyal to your friends. 
Be strong enough to face the world each day.
Be weak enough to know you cannot do everything alone.
Be generous to those who need your help. 

Be frugal with what you need yourself.
Be wise enough to know that you do not know everything.
Be foolish enough to believe in miracles. 
Be willing to share your joys. 
Be willing to share the sorrows of others. 

Be a leader when you see a path others have missed. 
Be a follower when you are shrouded by the mists of uncertainty. 
Be the first to congratulate an opponent who succeeds. 
Be the last to criticize a colleague who fails. 
Be sure where your next step will fall, so that you will not tumble. 

Be sure of your final destination, in case you are going the wrong way. 
Be loving to those who love you. 
Be loving to those who do not love you, and they may change. 
Above all, be yourself. 

-- Author Unknown


For more information contact us now
Email: Info@MindfullyChange.com
Our website: MindfullyChange.com
Follow Us On Twitter: @MindfullyChange
Phone: +1 (321) 214-5824

Attitude Changes Everything - A Short Story

There once was a woman who woke up in the morning, looked in the mirror, and noticed she had only three hairs on her head.  “Well,” she said, “I think I’ll braid my hair today.”  So she did and she had a wonderful day.

The next day she woke up, looked in the mirror, and saw that she only had two hairs on her head,  “H-M-M,” she said, “I think I’ll part my hair down the middle today.”  So she did and she had a grand day.

The next day she woke up, looked in the mirror, and noticed that she had only one hair on her head.  “Well,” she said, “today I’m going to wear my hair in a pony tail.” So she did and she had a fun, fun day.

The next day she woke up, looked in the mirror, and noticed that there wasn’t a single hair on her head.  “Yea,” she exclaimed, “I don’t have to fix my hair today!”

You see, attitude changes everything!


(http://xr.com/BLGatt)

For more information contact us now
Email: Info@MindfullyChange.com
Our website: MindfullyChange.com
Follow Us On Twitter: @MindfullyChange
Phone: +1 (321) 214-5824

The Art of Setting & Achieving Business Goals

Most business owners go through the entire year without a real clear picture of the goals they have for their business. Just going through the paces, week after week, without a clue whether they are ahead or behind. I think the reason most business owners do this is because if they never commit to a specific goal, then they can't be disappointed when they miss it. It keeps them from feeling worse about their lack of a real plan to succeed.

But we're going to run this race differently. We're going to set very specific goals. We're going to make sure everyone on the team knows our goals and we're going to measure our progress towards our goals on a regular basis. Are you with me?

Start here. Write down your goals for this year's race in specific categories. For example, Sales, Marketing, Customer Satisfaction, etc. If you have other specific areas that are critical to your success, then write down a goal in those areas as well. Be specific. What do you want to accomplish in each particular area of your business? When do you want to be at that goal? Who is going to take the lead in this specific area?

Now, if your goals are for where you want to be by the end of the year then I want you to go back and break them up into quarterly goals. Rather than staring at a huge, seemingly unachievable goal, it will be more motivating, more achievable if you state it in quarterly terms. Where do you want to be by the end of March? How about the end of June? How about the end of September? Making the goals more timely and achievable will motivate you and your team to accomplish them.

Now that you have your goals written, determine how you are going to share them with your partners, your team and the person who is going to hold you accountable to them - your business coach. You must go public with your goals if you intend to achieve them. Shine a light on them. Don't hide them just in case you do not achieve them or you can be certain that is exactly what will happen!

Lastly, begin measuring your progress against your goals. This is critical. Having a goal is one thing, but having a measurement system so you can see your progress on a regular basis is the key to victory! Keep it simple. Find a place to record your progress on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. Share the results. Celebrate the small wins. Make corrections and adjustments on a regular basis. These tactics will keep you and your team focused and will give you the highest probability of success!

[xr.com/BlgGols]


For more information contact us now
Email: Info@MindfullyChange.com
Our website: MindfullyChange.com
Follow Us On Twitter: @MindfullyChange
Phone: +1 (321) 214-5824

Not Being Perfect is Perfectly OK!

By a special guest blogger
Okay – so you screwed up again! Then there is the resultant self-flaggelation afterward, a collection of responses from mental masturbation, that hamster wheel of thoughts as we mentally rehearse over and over what could have or should have been because, DAMMIT, it wasn’t our fault (projection), to lethargy to sleeplessness (more rehearsing even as we try to get a break from the barrage of thoughts), to isolating to sniping at our partners (displacement is Freud’s term – you know when the boss yells at us and we go home and kick the dog). Whew! I’m exhausted just reading this! And believe me, it is barely the tip of the iceberg of responses of how we berate ourselves when we feel as though we’ve done something wrong. No one is perfect – perfect is boring, an illusion.

Native Americans understood the importance of flaws. In Navajo rugs there is always a flaw built into the design on purpose – This flaw is intentional – the Navajo believe that this flaw allows the spirit, or soul, of the blanket to have the freedom to roam, and for the blanket to never truly end. In reality, there is no such thing as perfect as we are all changing from each millisecond to the next – our bodies are renewing and aging, expanding and contracting with each moment. It would be much more true to think that we are perfect in all of our our imperfections. I can really see the beauty in that. So the next time you screw up, I mean really pull a big one (that isn’t caught on You Tube or anything), try to create some space for self-forgiveness. It is sooo much easier and takes a lot less energy to do so. Ahhhhh.

For more information contact us now
Email: Info@MindfullyChange.com
Our website: MindfullyChange.com
Follow Us On Twitter: @MindfullyChange
Phone: +1 (321) 214-5824

Appreciate Your Food More, Eat Mindfully

Start with focusing on part of your meal or snack as your "mindfulness" target--such as a cracker, olive, or orange slice. Before you put it in your mouth, note the color, shape and texture. Does it look appetizing to you? Do you notice any reactions in your body when you look at it? Does your mouth water? Does your stomach growl? Notice what is happening in your body. Move your hand slowly toward your mouth with your food. Take a moment to smell the food as it approaches your nose. Just notice. As you place the food in your mouth, notice all the sensations. Where is the food positioned in your mouth? What happens with your tongue? What tastes are you experiencing? Where on your tongue do you taste the different flavors? When you decide to chew, notice how the texture of your food changes. Notice the placement change of the food in your mouth. When you decide to swallow, notice all the changes that take place in your mouth and throat. Can you feel the food item moving down toward your stomach? What do you notice in your stomach now? Sit for another few seconds and notice any other changes in your body.


For more information contact us now
Email: Info@MindfullyChange.com
Our website: MindfullyChange.com
Follow Us On Twitter: @MindfullyChange
Phone: +1 (321) 214-5824

How to Remain Calm No Matter What the Storm

There has been a major storm in our economy for almost two years now. Understandably, this resulted in many people feeling very stressed. When you’re overly stressed the chemistry in your brain changes. Your problem solving abilities are reduced and your judgment is diminished - you may even experience an increase in aggression. In fact, being stressed it is a very similar state as being drunk! This is no state to be in when making important decisions about any area of your life. 


When the markets hit tremendous lows in the past year and a half, many investors panicked under the stress and sold all their investments. In most cases, this was a major mistake because they sold low and locked in all those loses. They did so because they were stressed and not thinking clearly. The Dow Jones has increased by about 40 percent since March, 2009 - unfortunately, anyone who panicked and sold stock before that date lost out on those huge market gains. Before you make any major decisions in any stormy circumstances, discover how to overcome the effects of stress on your brain.

Here are some simple and quick steps to take to begin to relax and reduce stress:

Ø Take at least 3 deep, slow, regular breaths – this will start to slow your heart rate, lower your blood pressure and restore cognitive clarity.

Ø As you breathe, let your shoulders relax and loosen your jaw – you may be surprised at how much tension you hold in your jaw.

Ø Focus your mind on the present moment – to help you with this maybe focus your attention on your breath passing through your nostrils as you breathe, or pick a spot on the wall or floor and focus your eyes gently on that spot. When focusing on the present moment you prevent yourself from regretting the past and fearing the future – both of which increase stress. (For a deeper understanding of this concept, read The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle.)

Ø When uncomfortable thoughts and feelings arise, don’t try to ignore them but acknowledge them as if from a distance and label them – recent research at UCLA proves this practice allows you to detach from negative emotions so they do not hijack your calmness.

Once you sense you are relaxed, you can start to look at your situation more realistically. Perhaps first take a break, go for a walk, get out in the fresh air and sunlight – it is advisable not to make major decisions during the dark of night when your mind seems to magnify problems. Then, like the serenity prayer says, accept the things you cannot change and have the courage to change the things you can. Regarding the things you cannot change - e.g., the markets crashing - simply accept the situation and let go of any tension you feel about it. If there is nothing you can do about it, why worry? 

Regarding the things you can change. Once you are relaxed and mental clarity has been restored to your brain, make an objective list of what you need to do – not one swayed by emotion. Then, calmly and as relaxed as possible, complete each task to the best of your ability.

Will this calm the outer storm in our economy and stop the markets crashing? No. But it will calm the storm within you and make you less likely to do something irrational that you will later regret.

For more information contact us now
Email: Info@MindfullyChange.com
Our website: MindfullyChange.com
Follow Us On Twitter: @MindfullyChange
Phone: +1 (321) 214-5824