Category: Creativity

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Change Your Life in 7 Days

Light Reading After Thanksgiving
Light Reading After Thanksgiving

Here we are, headed for Christmas. I am feeling appreciative of life and little things that really are big things, like hot water. I LOVE hot water!

According to Water.org, half of all the hospital beds in the world are occupied by patients suffering from ailments related to unsanitary water. How blessed are we to have clean air, clean water, and a working toilet? There’s probably a link between freedom to create and every day utilities functioning.

Now I’m reading my third book by hypnotist and best selling author, Paul McKenna, Ph.D. He’s sold three million books in the last three years! I hadn’t heard of him until a few months ago when a friend showed me two of his books and told me he’s the Dr. Phil of the United Kingdom. So I’ve read I Can Make You Sleep and I Can Make You Thin. Both of those books come with a CD.

Now, I’m reading Change Your Life in 7 Days. Get a free download of an MP3 that goes with this book and put yourself in a trance of confidence! You will have to give your name and email address.

Here’s my summary of the seven days:

Day 1: Who are you? You are who you pretend to be, who you are afraid to be and who you truly are. “The better you feel on the inside, the better your life will become.” – p. 37

Day 2: Emotional Intelligence: master how you picture things in your mind and learn to replay the biggest successes in your life. Vividly imagine the confident you.

Day 3: Reframe: our perspective is often the product of the questions we ask ourselves. You get what you focus on.

Day 4: Identify your goals: find out what you really want to accomplish in your lifetime and map out some goals to achieve them.

Day 5: Health: fine tune your spiritual, physical and mental well-being.

Day 6: Prosperity: create your financial abundance plan.

Day 7: Happiness: McKenna discusses the 8 triggers to happiness from studies by Professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s research:
1. Clear Goals – have a stated purpose, a clear goal.
2. Immediate feedback – we need continual feedback to know we’re on track).
3. Ability to Concentrate on the Task at Hand – focus on one thing at a time.
4. The Possibility of Successful Completion – preparation and baby steps toward a goal help.
5. Total Involvement – doing something for the sheer joy of doing it.
6. Loss of Self-Consciousness – ability to return to that flow feeling before we were around 5 years old and started judging ourselves.
7. A Sense of Control – feeling like we have a say in the direction of our lives.
8. Time Distortion – time seems to pass a lot quicker or slower than usual.
Learn to replay times when you’ve felt like you were in a state of flow. Blow up those pictures in your mind so they are huge, bright, with punched up colors.

A summary of day 7 is that a happy person does at least one difficult thing every day.

After seven days rinse and repeat and repeat and repeat and repeat. Be mindful of the software you run your brain with.

OK, Mr. McKenna, will there be an I Can Make You Creative?

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3 Things to Thank First

Creativity is born of a sense of freedom nurtured by the stability of a comforting environment. Comfort comes from our basic needs being met – food, clothing and shelter. Without food we wouldn’t exist. Which makes water one of our most important and basic needs of all.

I attended the Social Change Film Festival’s Symposium on the Global Water Crisis in November 2011. I found out a few alarming realities about water:

-1 in 8 people on this planet does not have access to drinkable water.

-Water is being fought over in places where it is scarce. Violent confrontations are taking place.

-In developing countries women are responsible for the getting of water and cooking. They leave their villages early in the morning and spend much of their day seeking water to bring home and drink and clean with.

What are three things to thank first?
1) running water
2) sanitary water
3) hot water

Want to make a difference? Check out Neetal Parekh’s blog at www.innov8social.com for tools to become an agent of positive social change.

Here’s a short video about what Water.org, founded by Gary White and Matt Damon, are doing about the crisis that affects us all.

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4 + 1 Quotes to Jumpstart Your Dreams

Wordstorm, by Mary Gow
WordStorm, digitized scanogram by Mary Gow
Now, many of us are being released from the 9 to 5 routine. Some are financially prepared for the loss of income, and some aren’t. Has there ever been a greater demand to be creative and follow your heart?

In my own case I have to avoid naysayers when I am working on implementing my dreams. I am finding tribes of dreamers who are going for the gusto.

I find certain quotations incredible spirit-lifters. I recall the first time I heard each of the following quotes and it’s no coincidence that they continue to be popular. They are timeless.

1. This quote has been credited to Johann von Goethe and W.H. Murray (of the Scottish Himalayan Expedition).

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Until one is committed there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and endless plans. That the moment one definitely commits oneself then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never have otherwise occurred. A whole stream of events issue from the decision, raising in one’s favour all manner of unforeseen incidents, and meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.

I’ve also seen it written this way:

But when I said that nothing had been done I erred in one important matter. We had definitely committed ourselves and were halfway out of our ruts. We had put down our passage money–booked a sailing to Bombay. This may sound too simple, but is great in consequence. Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, the providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets:
Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!

2. We can thank Joseph Campbell for the reminder to “Follow your bliss.”

If you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.

3. This quote is from Marianne Williamson, in her book, A Return to Love.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

4. Steve Jobs says it concisely:

Real artists ship!

+ 1. From Henry Ford: Whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t, you’re right.