Passive Vs Active Creativity

 By Susan K Loughrin 

Photo: my-ecoach.com

Each day you may wake up and write in your journal, practice yoga, meditate, or create something visual. In other words, you may have a consistent routine of creative momentum that brings you joy.
But where does this daily practice lead? You feel energized and creative; ready to begin your day, yet something seems amiss. How can these creative activities lead you to a new awakening? What are you yearning for that you would like to see brought to life?
It is at these times that we need to begin to formulate goals. To see a bigger or greater project based on our daily creative routines. It is vital and important to create each day. Now becomes the time to shift the mind-set.
There seems to be a necessary play between what may be called Passive versus Active creative work. The enjoyment of creating each day as part of your routine is necessary. Creating with a goal supports your need to actively participate in your life's purpose.
What is the main creative outlet in your life that you wish to "solidify"? How can you work each day towards your project goal?
Below is a list of steps that will support you in creating goals for your project journey:
1. Set aside time each day to do your "work".
2. Be proactive-you have a dream to create this project so set the stage for yourself and get to it.
3. When fears arise, practice affirmations, get supportive friends and share your thoughts, let the negative thoughts pass and get right back in there.
4. If a break is necessary, give it a time limit and get back to your task.
5. Set your goals into reasonable chunks of time.
6. Begin to look at venues that would be good to share your work.
Take a look now at marketing, preparing to share your work, shows, and presentations. This can be worked on in tandem, but is a necessary part of all creative work. How will you share it with others? Visualize what this will look like to you. Be thinking of your audience. Who would be most interested? The greater picture is to present, perform, and share your work.
Perhaps you have always been about the process of your creativity, but the wheels keep spinning. The performance (the presentation of your work) is a chance to use the spinning wheels to propel your artistic work straight up with the power of intention.
Where are you on your creative journey? Take the time to reflect on your own work and goals and share your brilliance.

Arts Consultant and Creativity Coach Susan Loughrin helps people find the joy and creativity in everyday life. With the Inner~Creative~Voice Newsletter, she brings inspiration through creativity activities and ideas that can be implemented every day. If you are ready to learn how to bring creativity and wonder into your daily life, visit today and get your free Creativity Gift Pack. http://www.innercreativevoice.com.

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Regret Is Unnecessary - We Are the Sum of Our Experiences

 By M Kashuk 

Photo: afteryoudie.net

To be upset, and hold a grudge, or harbor a regret about something that occurred in out lives 10, 20, 30, or ever two minutes ago is an absolutely pointless waste of time and valuable energy.
We are who we are, plain and simple, because of all of the things that we have done, the choices we have made and not made, and the experiences that we have had throughout our lives!
I smoked a joint when I was 15, ok, so what? Yes, that decision led me down a different path than I might have ended up on had I not had made that choice, but had I not, I would most certainly not be me.
Yes, I had ADHD and was asked to leave my primary school in the 7th grade, and attend a "special" school for three years to fill in the gaps in my learning.
Again, so what, a. nobody cares, b. would never know if I didn't tell them, and c. it worked! That experience DID repair my educational deficiencies, allowing me to go on and graduate high school with my class, and then move on to both attend and graduate college as well!
Would I be ANYTHING like the person I am today, without that experience?
I hardly think so.
Yes, I made many, many very poorly thought out and stupid decisions in my life, and I made some very good ones as well.
Still ALL of these decisions, good and bad coalesced into making me the unique and extremely well rounded person that I am today, with the unique abilities that I currently have to help others through insight into myself.
I was a Buddhist for 6 months in college, a Christian for a week, and an Orthodox Jew, with a huge brown beard, side locks on my head, and a completely black and white wardrobe for around a year and a half!
But do I still hold to any of these philosophies?
Yes, and no, and somewhat.
The point is that I am utterly the sum of every experience that I have ever had in my life, every decision that I have ever made, every concept I have ever learned, and every lesson forgotten.
We choose to be who we are today, yes, certainly.
But that choice is not made out of some void of ignorance or lack of perception.
We are who we are, because we have been who we have been, and you know what, that is what makes each of us a unique human being each with our own set of unique gifts to offer the world!
Enjoy who you have become, and are becoming. Enjoy Life!
Sincerely,
Mordechai

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Where Does Inner Confidence Come From?

 By Dan Jenkins 

Photo: peaceofmindcoach.com

When I was a teenager I was painfully shy, even with people who were "acquaintances". If the teacher called on me to read or respond to a question, I would blush.
A few weeks ago I was privileged to conduct a very elegant, high profile wedding. Years ago it would have terrified me. However, after 400 weddings, I know who I am as a wedding minister, and I know what I can do. Rather than focus in on the circumstances, I focused upon what I knew, and probably appeared to be supremely confident. No one will ever know if I really was that confident, or if I just knew how to combine experience and acting.
Reaching the heights of confidence requires a mountain of failures. And, it requires a particular mindset. That mindset realizes that other people aren't thinking about us hardly at all.. they are too busy thinking about themselves to be concerned about us.
I have the same confidence whether in a small study group (as teacher) or with a large group of uneducated workers or in a huge crowd of wealthy, famous people.. they are all the same. And, all are worthy of respect. It is an interesting thing.. when we really respect other people, they usually figure it out pretty quickly without us telling them. It is probably why I find acceptance wherever I go. (Actually, my lack of confidence and easy embarrassment as a child and teen made it difficult for people to accept me, because I was too busy being concerned about my own embarrassment.)
What is that definition of humility? The acceptance and practice of the importance of other people.
Oh...what is the difference between confidence and arrogance? If you can produce results, and know it, that is confidence. If you have to toot a brass horn about what you supposedly can do, that is arrogance. Actually, arrogance is an attitude of superiority toward other people, and it is opposite of humility.
Do you know why I am confident in my abilities? Because I know why I do what I do.. it is to help other people achieve their goals. Therefore, I dress and behave according to my part, and do my best to make a success for others. I only have one Boss, and He is always watching me. For some strange reason He loves my heart.
It is like my Dad taught me how to treat possessions. He said, if it belongs to you, treat it like it belongs to God. And, if it belongs to someone else, treat it like it belongs to God. It is a great attitude toward a job, other people, and the most precious relationships which God places in our lives. And, when we apply our talents the right way for the right reason, we have every reason to be confident... because we love God and other people.

Dan Jenkins is an ordained minister, Entrepreneur, Internet businessman and author. His wedding website, is found at http://www.ChristianOfficiant.com

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How To Build Self Confidence in Yourself

 By Amelie Couremer 

Photo:  buildselfconfidencenow.com

Positive Thinking Tips

Would you like to be able to concentrate on achieving your goals every single day? Would you like to keep high spirits and generate enough energy to keep going towards your dreams? Would you like to feel rejuvenated and ready to conquer the world on a constant basis? Think about how you feel when you just heard a great lecture, read an awesome book or seen a terrific movie? Aren't you ready to climb the Everest or sell ice to the Eskimos? But the next day or a few days later, the enthusiasm has melt away. This is when you need to apply positive thinking to keep going.
Here is a course of action that will rocket your positive frame of mind, help you focus and generate high motivation. I've used this method to be open to and take advantage of positive influences. It has helped me catch on opportunities that I would have missed and would have never even become aware of.
Decide to follow a one-month mental detoxification. Stop watching television: Broadcast news; cynical, violent or pessimistic shows; news mongering etc. Who needs a steady diet of all that?
Turn the radio off except if great songs or music are playing and without any unnecessary bad comments from the radio host. Or better, sing your heart out and listen to the birds or the wind. You'll be surprised.
Read 15 to 30 minutes of inspiring prose at breakfast to set you in high spirits for the day.
Get in some exercise or do more of it. Walk places instead of driving, park farther away and walk for a little bit. Use the stairs instead of the elevator. If you can get to a gym, great, do it.
Avoid the company of negative or pessimistic individuals. If you have to meet them absolutely, cut the time down. The less you're seeing them, the better off you are.
Choose your relationships so you have a pleasant entourage of people who are friendly and positive in life.
Drink lots of alkaline water. It helps release toxins that are in your body.
Take 15 to 30 minutes each day to examine your goals, what you want to happen and what you're appreciative of. Take this time to really examine where you are gaining ground and where you are losing. Reinforce the actions that have positive effects and get rid of those that are not contributing to your efforts.
If you follow the above, I promise that you'll observe an astonishing difference at the end of the month. Track your successes in a journal and appreciate your refreshing positive attitude and blooming self-confidence.

Amelie has dealt with a lot of people from all walks of life. She's learnt that the primary tool to success is knowing how to handle relationships with tact. She's also found out that a positive attitude in life makes the difference between a winner and a loser. If you're interested in reading more about self-confidence and positive thinking you can do so by going to http://getyourexbackmap.com/category/magicofmakingup/ebook

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Don't Allow Negative Thoughts To Steal Your Dreams

By Ivan Eyre 

Photo: farm4.static.flickr.com

In this article we're going to discuss the burden we all carry of our own negative thoughts. These can be thoughts that are given us by other people in their feedback or thoughts we've been 'smart' enough to come up with ourselves to talk us out of doing something!
Now, before we get started, this is not going to be one of those 'just think positive thoughts and everything will be ok' sessions. I don't care what other people tell you - that just doesn't work. Thinking positive thoughts will NOT guarantee your success. I can tell you now, the absolute key to success in any area of your life is taking action - but that's something for another day.
No, what I'm talking about is recognizing that negative thoughts can almost guarantee your failure.
Just stop and think about it for a moment - when was the last time you met someone who was really successful and, at the same time, they were also pessimistic? I'm not a betting man but if I were, I'd give you good odds you could count them on the fingers of no hands.
In general, successful people are very optimistic. But you might say "Well I'd be a whole lot more likely to be optimistic if I had their success!" Here's the thing - we need to flip that statement around. We need to be saying "Well I'd be a whole lot more likely to be successful if I had their optimism!"
As I've said, negativity can come in two forms - external and internal. There's not a lot we can do about the external except choose not to be influenced by it - or change the people we mix with. What we can do something about, though, is our own internal dialogue.
When we mess up or something doesn't turn out as we planned - don't swear under your breath or call yourself an idiot or even worse. Replace that way of thinking with something more positive. Ask yourself what you can learn from what just happened and how you can do it better next time.
I was on a forum the other day and saw a comment - I'm afraid I cannot remember exactly where and can't recall the name of the gentleman who left it so cannot give him credit here - but he said the most wonderful thing. He said that his New Year's Resolution had been to decide that things would no longer go wrong for him, they would just go astonishingly well in an unexpected way he hadn't quite figured out yet!
What a great way to turn things around - that gentleman was standing at the start of a fresh New Year in the knowledge that absolutely nothing was going to go wrong for him. Now, with that attitude, do you believe he is more likely or less likely to achieve the goals he set for himself this year?
So, today I want you to listen to your own self-talk - particularly when things are going astonishingly well in a way you haven't quite figured out yet - and any time any degree of negativity creeps in there, replace it with something positive.
Get in touch and let me know how that goes and tell me what it does for your energy levels, too - I think you might just amaze yourself!

Ivan spent thirty years pursuing a typical career path, when a series of events led him to suspect there must be more to life.
So he and his wife, Carole, decided to see if there was. The answer was a resounding YES!
Ivan and Carole now show others how they can have the life they want if they just make the decision to go out and get it. http://www.facebook.com/YourNewFutureStartsHere

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How to Appreciate the Small Things in Life!

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Appreciating the small things in life is vital to our health and happiness but it is so easy to fall in pace with modern life's frantic style and thus miss out on these benefits. The question is, how do we stop this unhealthy momentum long enough to notice the things that bring us peace and happiness?
The answer never lies far from Mother Nature and her pearls of wisdom...
Have you ever noticed the grace and apparent ease with which a bird glides through the sky? Although the bird may seem to effortlessly take to the sky and soar through the air, one thing is absolutely necessary: the bird needs to be aware of the upward movement of air, called thermals. Thermals act as the support that allows birds to glide, but before birds can enjoy this free ride, they need to become aware of these thermals by engaging their senses.
Likewise, for you to glide above your hectic pace, you need to engage your senses. Can you remember the last time you sat quietly, no matter where you were, just to make yourself aware of the many different sounds around you? I encourage you to do so now. Stop and listen. What sounds can you hear? Similarly, by using your other senses, what do you become aware of? What can you smell? What can you see that you have not noticed before? Touch the material of your clothing, how does this feel on your fingertips, palms of your hands or even against your face? A new world awaits you if you are willing to engage all of your senses.
To become a vibrant, healthy and happy person again, focus on the simple things in life. Whenever you feel stressed or agitated, simply stop for a moment and engage your senses. Become aware of the many sounds, colours, aromas or the physical touch of your environment and feel your stresses disappear.
As you look upon a bird's graceful flight across the sky, remember that you too can rise above your stressful situations by learning to engage your senses to appreciate the...
Small Things!

http://www.secretpearls.com

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Positive Thinking and How to Keep Doing It When Things Aren't Going to Plan

 By Richie Lloyd

Photo: steveroesler.typepad.com

Welcome to the second article in the series about Positive Thinking. The first article gave you a simple skill to practice to improve your Positive Thinking. This article is about how to continue your Positive Thinking when all around you is not quite going to plan.

When everything is going well, anyone can think positively but when things start to go awry, at the very time when you need to be thinking positively your thinking can take a definite turn for the worse.

Remember how the first article gave you the exercise of balancing every single negative thought with a minimum of three positive thoughts? Well how do you manage to keep your Positive Thinking going when your goals and dreams appear to be dashed? How do you refocus on the positives even when they appear harder to find?

There is a technique within Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) called reframing. In base terms this can be viewed within the well known phrase, "What does not kill me makes me stronger". No matter how bad things have become for you, you are still alive and with patience, determination and motivation you can start again. Accept what has gone on, what has happened to you. Learn from the mistakes and start again.

It is not the event that causes the negative thought. You know from article one that you control your thoughts. When you were young and got the present that you always wanted for your birthday or Christmas you would have been filled with elation.

Let's say you got a bicycle for your birthday. You walk into the room and there is a bicycle shaped present all wrapped up in the corner and you start to smile and get excited because you have so wanted a bicycle for so long. You feel happy because you have got what you always wanted and so you have positive thoughts.

There is no direct transference of positive thinking from the bicycle to you. The bicycle is not capable of filling your mind with positive thoughts and smiles and giggles; it is your choice to react that way.

Now imagine walking into the room and seeing a bicycle shaped present all wrapped up in the corner. How do you feel seeing that present, knowing it is your "big" present, when what you actually wanted was a pony?

The lack of a pony does not make you feel sad, angry or frustrated. The bicycle shaped present does not transmit negative thoughts into your brain. You choose to think and feel that way. And once you understand that basic principle you should be able to choose how you think and feel in any other given situation.

Any event, in isolation, does not have any meaning at all until YOU attach an emotion to it. You have the choice to accept that something that you had planned for has not been achieved and you have the choice to think either positively or negatively about that situation.

Tony Robbins gives an excellent example of an immediate reframe. Picture yourself lying asleep in bed in the middle of the night. You wake because you hear your bedroom door opening. The emotions that this event elicits will be very different if you are expecting your partner back from a night out, than if you live on your own and are not expecting anyone to open the door at all!

In modern parlance you will know that politicians are masters of reframing. It does not matter what happens, they have the ability to "spin" the event into a positive event for their party and a negative event for their opponents and that is the basis of lesson two.

What you need to do is practice putting a positive spin on to any event that occurs in your life. For example, a couple of weeks ago my laptop was hacked. It would not allow me to access any programme, online or offline. Yes, it was annoying. Yes, it meant that I could not complete some work that I planned to do. Yes, it was going to cost me money to fix it.

I had the choice to be royally upset and focus on the negatives and I admit that was tempting. However, for every negative thought I have, turning my bucket back to rusty is not an option. How did I put a positive spin on it? Simple, I chose to finish my work day early. It allowed me to spend more time with my partner. I already knew that I needed better online security but had been procrastinating.

I had to do it now that's for sure. I could always catch up on my work later. At this point I have no sensitive material on my laptop but am at the point of adding capture pages to some of my work. Thank goodness that my security was compromised prior to obtaining other people's details! It was much better to add the security now, before I had those details and therefore protect my information in future.

Try a simple exercise now. Picture any event that has happened in your past and caused you to have negative thoughts and put you in a bad mood. Go back to the event and look at how you felt and instead of concentrating on the negative, think of five positives from that event instead.

Have you ever been made redundant or lost your job? The natural thought process would be to worry about your situation. How will you get another job? You have no recent interview practice and it is ages since you wrote a CV. Your cash flow is going to be detrimentally affected for sure and it would be tempting to concentrate on the negatives.

Or, you can put a positive spin on it. You can spend some time with your partner and children and family and friends. You finally have a chance to catch up with all of the chores that you have been neglecting. What about that training course you have always considered, or that hobby that you have always wanted to try. You have a chance to give due consideration to your whole life. You can take stock and perhaps choose a totally different career path. Maybe you can even start working from home for yourself?

Which of those mind sets will produce the better results? The answer should be obvious. Reframing is just a skill that needs mastering. Practice it and refine it and you will get better at it. Don't practice and you will simply ride the peaks and troughs like a yacht in a storm - pretty much like everyone else. Those highs and lows really are your choice to make.

Strangely enough, the most successful proponent of "reframing" was also the most successful person I ever knew. You could tell him that his house had burnt down and he would have an instant reframe. He would probably just say that he had been planning to look for something bigger!

Here is a real life gem from him. On the way to the office one morning in dreadful weather, his car broke down. He called the tow truck and set off walking in the pouring rain, arriving at the office totally soaked to the skin.

The receptionist said, "Dave, what an awful day, you are soaked wet through, how awful?"

Without missing a step he replied, "No Collette, today is a fantastic day. I have had time to clear my thoughts while walking to the office and it has occurred to me how perfect the human body is. Imagine if our noses were the other way round, I could have drowned!" And with his normal beaming smile he set to work

How many other people sitting there, wet through, thinking about a broken down car and the costs involved would have considered that a pretty poor start to the day and allowed a bad attitude to affect the rest of the day?

Extreme example for sure. Extreme reframing for sure. Extremely successful man for sure.

Start practicing this habit now. Anytime something goes wrong, or doesn't quite go to plan, turn the negative into a positive and keep shining your bucket. If you can get the skill perfected now, then when something really bad happens you won't immediately fall back into the bad habit of negative thinking just when you most need to remain a great exponent of positive thinking.

Richie Lloyd
http://www.richielloyd.com
Experienced corporate business and marketing manager, Certified Practitioner of NLP, hypnotherapy and timeline therapy, Mentor, teacher and student in the field of internet marketing.
I invite you to visit my blog and pick up some free gifts to help you develop your business and yourself

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