Motivational

Nurturing Creativity Takes Time

When you are trying to be creative, don’t be tempted to force it because this can be detrimental and have the complete opposite effect and cause your creativity to dry up.

This will only cause frustration and can become an unending cycle of frustration and lack of creativity and focus,

Being creative takes time for most people so you need to be patient. Also, many of us lead incredibly busy lives and it can be difficult to find the time to sit down and try to get the creative juices flowing.

But if you want to unleash your creativity, it is important to try to make time in your daily schedule.

Be Okay With A Split Work Schedule

Sometimes you can get burnt out on your work pretty quickly during the day. If you’re working for 8 straight hours, then by about hour 5 or 6, you’re going to be feeling pretty worn down and ready to recharge.

Many people seem to stress getting all of your work done for the day in one block, but you really don’t have to do that. In fact, it can be quite helpful for your focus and creativity to split up your work schedule as you’d like it.

Let’s say you’re working for 8 hours each day. During that time, you likely want to get as much done as possible, so you want to be working efficiently and competently. It’s most definitely not impossible for you to work 8 hours straight.

Many people do that. However, not many people come out of 8 hours of straight work feeling happy or energetic – nor do they give it their all during the last couple of hours. What you should do is split that 8 hours of work into two halves, each only lasting 4 hours long.

By the end of each 4-hour shift, you might be a little bit tired, but definitely not as bad. You can take some time in between to nap, relax, and do whatever you want to do – such as tapping into the creative side of your brain before you get back to work.

At the end of the day, you’ll have more energy, but you will have worked the same amount total. You just gave yourself some time to rest in between, but overall, it’s the same exact amount of work.

In fact, you might actually become more accomplished because you’ll be reinvigorated in the second half of work after some time spent recharging. You can even split it into smaller chunks if you’d like.

You can do 4 sessions of two hours each, which isn’t much at all. If you’re taking good sized breaks in between, you’re going to have a much-needed rest at the start of each session and be able to work as efficiently as possible during the time that you do work.

Some people might scoff at splitting up your work schedule, because it’s not the traditional way of working. Keep those thoughts out of your mind because it doesn’t matter if the work is done all at once or not, as long as it all gets done throughout the day.

Just try it for yourself and see how it works out for you. What have you got to lose?

So, you now have put time aside to nurture your creativity. But how do you go about doing that during those sessions?

Do your sessions have to be strict and regimented or more fluid and forgiving?

This may well depend on the type of person you are, but it can be a good idea to not put too many restraints on yourself during these sessions and to get things out of your mind and tidy them up later.

Be Okay With ‘Messy’ Creativity You Can Sort Out Later

You may have encountered situations where you’re being creative and coming up with new ideas, but you spend a lot of time trying to make them more focused than they are. You might think that creativity and focus have to happen at the same time, but that’s just not true.

In fact, not only can you reign in your ideas later, but it might be beneficial to you to only be creative and not place so much emphasis on cleaning them up right away. When you’re brainstorming new ideas, they’re bound to come out a bit messy.

That’s not a negative at that time – it’s just natural. Creativity isn’t meant to be focused and structured at first, but rather raw thoughts that need to be refined later. If you’re trying to do both at the same time, you might stifle your own creativity by not allowing it to breathe, constricting it with too many boundaries.

To get the most out of your creativity, you should just let it all flow out no matter how nonsensical it might seem at the time. Whatever comes to mind, just put it all out on paper so that later on you can sort through it and find what will work best and what maybe needs to be restructured.

Your brain will often either be in a creative state, or a focused state. Each one of these has their own benefits but trying to do both at the same time can end up hurting both. Your focus won’t allow your creativity to have enough wiggle room, while your creativity will cloud your focus.

Have dedicated time for each to fully develop your ideas. Let’s say you’re brainstorming ideas for a slogan for your company. The first thing you should do is let your creativity flow and come up with whatever you can think of and write it all out.

This lets you cover as many possible ideas as you can, so that you don’t leave a potentially good slogan out. Later, you can then look back through all of the slogans you thought of, and sort through them.

You might see some that are good, but need to be changed a bit, some that are good as they are, and some that might just need to be ditched. There’s no shame in tossing an idea out later, but you want to make sure you put it out there in case it seems like a good idea when the time comes to focus.

Having a strong mindset is critical to any attempt to nurturing creativity and staying focused, so click on the featured resource below to get a free report on how to develop a strong mindset. Download, it read and take action 🙂

What Is A Success Mindset And How Can You Have One?

If you’re interested in achieving more with your life, then you have probably read your fair share of self-help books. And if you’ve done that, then there’s a good chance you will have come across the phrase ‘success mindset’.

But what exactly does this mean? And is it really possible to start achieving more in your life, simply by changing your mindset?

The answer is a resounding “Yes!” and many people have done so and gone on to achieve great things in their lives.

So, with that being said, let’s take a closer look…

What Does A Success Mindset Entail?

The success mindset, as the name suggests, is the type of mindset and set of beliefs that will set you on track to accomplish more.

This is the set of beliefs, the attitude and the conviction that is required to really go out there and get what you want in life.

And yes, it really is the mindset that is the most important factor here.

Think about those people in your life and in the media who are highly successful and effective. What is different about them compared with everyone else? There are possibly a few factors but the most important things are:

A) They know exactly what they want out of life, exactly where their passions are and exactly who they are
B) They have the unstoppable energy and determination to go out there and make it happen

Let’s take a look at Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson for example. This is a guy who has accomplished incredible things in multiple fields and what is it that helped him get there? The fact that he is willing to put in absolutely insane amounts of work.

If you follow him on Instagram, you’ll constantly be greeted by pictures of him training in the gym at 4am before full days of shooting. Where does he get that energy? He gets it from his passion.

Can you ever imagine a sullen Rock? And can you imagine that a sullen version of his persona would have gotten to where he is today?

So, the first step to building a mindset for success is to define what it means to succeed, for you.

Setting goals for yourself makes it easier to come up with a plan of action to achieve your ambitions and will motivate you to carry out that plan.

You also need to maintain a positive attitude to life. Never underestimate the power of focusing on the positive in any given situation (and there is always something positive you can focus on).

Positivity and having a plan will help you to develop a success mindset but it isn’t the full story because you also have to take action on your plan and this is where many people fail because they don’t actually put their plan into action.

You must take responsibility for your own destiny; nobody else can do it for you, so make you plan, take action and stay positive if and when you come across any obstacles. Do this and you can have a real success mindset.

So that is basically what it means to have a ‘success mindset’ and hopefully, it has also given you a big clue as to what you need to do to get there. In order to have a successful mindset, you need to find your passion and know yourself.

When you can do that, then suddenly everything is going to fall seamlessly into place. You’ll find you have plenty of energy when you truly love whatever it is you do!

Of course, not everything always goes to plan and if or when things do go wrong you need to be able to turn any kind of negative experience into a positive one so let’s take a deeper look at that now…

How To Turn Negative Feedback Into Positive Results

Having a success mindset means taking risks and it means putting yourself out there. It means taking chances and being willing to fail.

And when you do all that, you’ll find that sometimes you do fail. Sometimes people laugh at you. Sometimes you lose a lot of money.

And this can hurt a lot. Sometimes, it feels as though you will never be successful, and that other people seem to have it all figured out. But let’s take a step back for a moment.

Because most of the successful people you know and most of the successful people in the media were unsuccessful at some point. And they have been in exactly the same position as you – having tried and failed.

The only difference between those people and the ones you never hear about, is that they got back up, they shrugged off the criticisms and they went for it anyway.

And if you dig a little deeper, nearly every ‘success story’ is actually made up of a thousand little failures, rejections and humiliations.

Look at JK Rowling who had her book rejected countless times before it made her into one of the richest people on the planet.

Look at Arnold Schwarzenegger who was told that he could never be a movie star with his thick accent and physique.

And yet, look at them now…

The key to remember is that you’re at a point in your story where there’s challenge and upheaval but if you take this in your stride, it will actually make you stronger.

When you receive criticisms from others, what do you do? Do you curl up in a ball and cry about it? Or do you decide that you’re going to learn from their critique and take it on board. Next time, they won’t be able to make that same criticism!

And when you fail and lose your money, do you give up on starting your own business? Or do you make a note of everything that you did wrong and then endeavour not to make those same mistakes again?

This is the difference between successful people and the rest of us. And look at it this way: if you treat every single failure as a chance to get better, then every single time you try, you will slightly increase your chances of winning big.

And that means that if you continue trying, the odds will eventually be stacked in your favor!

If you want to know more about this topic, please read this post here, plus you can also click on the featured resource below to get a free report on how to develop a strong mindset. Download, it read and take action 🙂

4 Actions To Target Your Personal Growth

We all have areas where we want to improve; health, work, family, you name it. But reality sets in along with a busy schedule that doesn’t leave any space for quiet time, let alone individual development.

We also rarely have the willpower we need to see it through. Or maybe we just don’t know where or how to start.

Mindset plays a key part in our success in life and our personal growth but is often overlooked as it is mentioned so much it can appear a little cliched. But you overlook the power of a strong, success mindset at your peril.

If you want to know more about developing a strong mindset, download this free guide here.

Not being able to define your own long-term goals will end up in a life that’s devoid of meaning or direction. You start losing that spark and the motivation to get up each morning wanes.

If you start the day with a negative mindset, how do you think that will impact the rest of your day? You need to make a routine where waking u triggers positive emotions to ensure your day is great. It’s all about focus.

Experts define the personal growth plan as “the process of creating an action plan based on awareness, values, reflection, goal-setting and planning for personal development within the context of a career, education, relationship or for self-improvement.”

An individualized growth plan can help you achieve the vision you have of yourself. It’s something we need to consciously think about and strive toward. If you don’t plan your own development and growth, no one else will and we wonder why we aren’t getting anywhere in life.

We must be actively trying to improve ourselves and to grow or we will stagnate and achieve nothing.

Life is a participation sport; it isn’t a passive spectator sport!

So, get up and start taking control of your life and destiny and if you do, the sky is the limit.

And to help you along the way, here are 4 steps you can take to develop a well-rounded, easy-to-implement, personalized plan.

1. Know Yourself

In order to plan for the future, you have to reflect on your past experiences, your weaknesses and strengths; they’ve made you who you are today.

You also have to clarify your own unique values, such as integrity, respect for others, leadership, honesty. Your values define your stance whether it’s at the workplace, with family and friends, and in your romantic relationships.

Moreover, there are several important questions you have to ask yourself:

What do I want to become in life?
What are my achievements up until now?
What are my personal goals?
What are my career ambitions?
What steps have I taken to pursue these goals and ambitions?

These may look like simplistic questions to ask yourself, but the beauty is in their simplicity. And you can bet that the vast majority of people go through life never thinking that they can change their destiny so will never think to ask these questions of themselves.

Just by knowing about this stuff, you are way ahead of most people, but knowing isn’t enough; you need to act on what you are learning.

2. Develop Your Vision

Once you’ve asked and answered these questions, you’ll have a clear vision of who you are and what you want out of life. This takes us to the second step; developing your vision. A smart tip is to provide yourself with several options to reach your next goal.

That way, if something goes wrong or you face an obstacle, you can switch to another path. Be flexible in your planning because usually people tend to underestimate how long a certain project will take.

Another point people tend to not pay attention to is what they don’t want to do. If you’re at work, you can make a list of what-not-to-do, for example:

Check emails as soon as they come in
Keep too many tabs open at once
Keep cell phone on your desk
Check social media while you’re working

3. Assess Your Current Situation

Implementing your plan can be difficult at first. But with dedication and an eye on the prize, you’ll soon find that it becomes a daily habit. It was Jim Ryun who said, “Motivation is what get you started. Habit is what keeps you going.”

Putting your strengths to good use will harness your energy levels so that it’s utilized efficiently. You can set up milestones along the way because smaller goals give you the motivation and drive you need to get to the big ones.

And each time you reach a milestone or achieve one of the small goals, reward yourself for your hard work.

4. Review Your Progress

Each project needs to be reviewed and assess, and your exclusive growth plan is no different. You can do it on a monthly basis, or every couple of months, whatever feels comfortable for you. But it’s crucial that you take a step back and look at all the hard work you’ve accomplished.

Check to see if you’ve left anything out or missed any deadlines. Or maybe the mini-goals you set up last time don’t fit your criteria any longer, they need tweaking or readjusting.

Reflect on your experience and consider everything you’ve learned. This will ensure that you keep moving forward according with your long-term plan and the vision you’ve set up for yourself.

On a final note, you can draw up the perfect plan but if you don’t follow through, you won’t get anywhere. Everyone needs practice to develop and grow, even if it means stepping out of your comfort zone. Having something to strive toward can renew your self-confidence and passion for life.

And remember, when following a plan, it isn’t just about the destination but the journey too. Too often we focus on the end result without enjoying the process and that is a shame because we are missing out.

If you want to know more about enjoying the journey, check out this training here as it will definitely help you to do just that.

And don’t forget to work on your mind during all this. If you want to develop a strong mindset, click on the featured resource below for a free report. Download, read it and take action 😊

5 Ways To Boost Your Concentration Skills

Do you lack focus and/or the ability to concentrate for extended periods of time? If you are like the vast majority of human beings, I’m sure that you answered, “Yes!”

A Microsoft study found that, on average, humans have an 8-second concentration span. And that number is probably shrinking as we speak because we’ve got used to everything being fleeting and prompt.

The modern world with the vast bank of knowledge via the Internet and 24-hour news stations, plus social media networks have made us a race of people that want everything NOW!

This lack of patience plays havoc with our ability to maintain concentration and focus on tasks for more than a very short period of time before our minds wander, and add FOMO (or the Fear Of Missing Out) into the mix and it’s a wonder that we can maintain any concentration at all!!

But no matter how much you try to shrug it off, there really is no substitute for paying attention. No matter what your environment is, your ability to get things done depends on your ability to pay attention.

Being able to concentrate can skyrocket your productivity which can be a real boon for your business (if you are a business owner) or can make you a really viable candidate for that promotion or bonus if you work for a company as it will make you stand out from your colleagues.

So, how do we even begin to develop our skills of concentration?

Well, the good news is that you can learn to focus more and focus better. All you need is to alter your mindset, take charge and apply these 5 simple tips to boost your attention span and become a master of concentration and productivity.

Prioritize Your Tasks

You’re at work; you have deadlines, meetings, projects, tasks – all things that need to get done within the span of a few hours. What to do? You make a list, of course.

Many successful people swear by their lists because it has everything on it, from the most important to the things that can wait until later.

Another great tip? Write your list the night before so you’re not bombarded with many things at the start of the day. This is like stretching before a workout – it doesn’t take a lot of time, but you can’t start without it.

Many of the world’s most successful people swear by making their to do lists the night before because they can hit the ground running first thing in the morning and they will already know what their number one priority for the day is going to be.

Why not try it for yourself and see what difference it can make to your day.

Take Scheduled Breaks

Francesco Cirillo, owner of the Cirillo Consulting firm in Berlin, devised an ingenious system that manages time by breaking it down into intervals.

For example, once you’ve started on a task, set the timer to, say, 30 minutes.

During that time, focus completely on that task. Once the timer rings, you take a 10-minute break to get some coffee or just walk around your desk for some quick exercise. Then, every 4 30-minute work intervals, you can take a longer break of 20-30 minutes.

The way this technique works is that you have to refrain from picking up your phone to check your email or social media every 5 minutes.

If you want to know more about this type of system of breaking tasks down, take a look at this post here which explains a technique known as the Pomodoro technique.

Research has proven that it takes us nearly 25 minutes to get back to our original task once we’ve been distracted, which means you’re spending the entire day just on trying to regain your focus but not really achieving it.

A smart way to avoid this when it comes to your phone is to put it on silent or stick it in a drawer to ward off temptation. An even better way to do this is to carve out half an hour at the start of the day, or in the afternoon, to get all that out of your system so that you’re not constantly thinking about it.

Declutter

While it may seem pretty straightforward to everyone that working in a calm, organized environment boosts concentration and, hence, productivity, it may not be as easy as it sounds.

Even if your choices are limited or can’t get away with changing too much of your workspace, you can do wonders with a few add-ons here and there.

But all you need are a few basic items:

a desk organizer to store away whatever you’re not working on at the moment
a plant or two because it’s been proven that being surrounded by nature peak concentration levels and extend your attention span
a good source of lighting
a calming piece of artwork or photo
soft background music or sounds of nature to put you in the mood to concentrate

Stay Healthy

Most people don’t make the connection between eating right and having strong concentration and memory skills.

Studies show that foods high in trans fats and processed sugars have a negative effect on your cognitive abilities.

Enjoying a balanced diet rich in minerals and vitamins, on the other hand, boosts energy levels and gives you the mental stamina you need to concentrate on the task at hand.

Water is also very important to prevent dehydration. Staying hydrated throughout the day prevents your mind from slowing down. Exercising regularly also boosts cognitive powers and mental stamina.

Play Games

There has been extensive research that shows just how much how solving crossword puzzles, problem-solving exercises and other types of mental games can improve cognitive abilities, reasoning, memory and attention spans.

It also boosts your skill and speed on tasks which have to do with memory and reasoning.

So, take a few minutes out of your day to challenge the grey matter to boost your ability to concentrate. And they can be fun too.

Want to learn more about productivity? Then, download the featured free report below, read it and take action 😊

5 Ways You Waste Time Every Day

Do you find yourself at the end of a day wondering just what you have managed to accomplish? Are you wasting valuable time each day?

If the answer is yes, check out the most common five ways you waste time every day. Be honest, do you find yourself doing any of them?

I’m sure you will be guilty of at least one of them as modern life is so full of things that can distract us from getting things done.

Many of us spend so much time being ‘busy’ but end up with nothing to show for it. Did you get your tasks for today done? No?

If that sounds a bit like you then this post will hopefully help you to become more productive each and every day by becoming aware of these distractions and time sinks and managing to avoid them to get stuff done.

You’ll also find some handy time management strategies in here too.

They can help you become more efficient and productive and be able to get the most out of your day.

Are you ready? Let’s get started…

5 Of The Biggest Timewasters Of Your Day

Even if you’re one of the more dedicated and organized people out there, you still waste time. Whether you work from home or in the office, we’re all guilty of getting distracted and losing focus.

It may not be deliberate, and you probably don’t even realize you’re doing it until it’s too late.

Here are five ways you waste time every day. See if you can relate.

1. Social Media/Emails/Texts

This is the big one and I can pretty much guarantee that everyone reading this post is or has been guilty of this one!

It’s become a vital part of our lives. But the world won’t stop turning if you don’t look at your social media for 15 minutes.

Another big distraction is hearing that too familiar ‘ding’ that comes with a new email or text message. It prevents you from finishing the task at hand because you keep looking at your phone every five minutes.

Picture this scenario: you’re in the middle of work when your phone beeps. You reach for your phone to see your incoming message. So, you go from message to email to Facebook to Instagram. Then, when you’re done, you notice that 20 minutes have gone by.

Research shows that each time you get distracted, even for a couple of minutes, your brain needs more than 20 minutes to refocus. Imagine how much wasted time that amounts to at the end of the day!

The Fix: Avoid randomly checking social media, emails, or texts. Instead, set up a certain time during your day for doing just that. In the meantime, turn off any notifications or mute your phone.

2. Organizing And Preparing

You’re probably wondering: how is this a time-waster?

But too often we fall down the rabbit hole of ‘organizing’ our day. Sometimes, we take too far that we actually run out of time to do any of the things on our list.

The Fix: Find an online planner and to-do-list. Then, pick one day out of the week where you plan out the whole seven days in advance.

Schedule in work-related projects, meetings, and deadlines. You can also include a workout schedule and get-togethers with friends.

3. Multitasking

Multitasking: another thing that we do to trick ourselves into believing we’re being productive. Yet, the sad truth is, multitasking wastes a ton of time.

It’s counter-productive when your attention is divided among several tasks at once. In other words, it’s just another form of distraction.

The Fix: It’s simple. Just put all your attention and focus on one task at a time. When you’re done, move on to the next task, and so on.

4. Checking The News

In this day and age, it seems something is happening in the news every five minutes. So, it’s easy to use the news as an excuse for procrastination. After all, we all want to be in the loop when it comes to politics, sports, and local news.

The Fix: Force yourself to stay away from checking news updates every half hour. You can use sheer self-discipline, or you can use a site blocker.

One great example is the Stay Focused Chrome app. It helps you ‘hide’ certain websites for, say, 45 minutes. Then, tell the app you want to spend 20 minutes on the so-and-so website. After the 20 minutes are done, the app will block you again until your next break.

5. Errands And Chores

The problem isn’t with the errands or chores themselves; it’s when you do them. Running errands during rush hour is one of the biggest time wasters ever!

Doing chores is another. You might be sitting at your desk, working away when you notice a dusty shelf or a cluttered drawer. So, you do the responsible thing and start dusting and decluttering.

You tell yourself that it’ll only take five minutes. Then, when you’re done cleaning the entire room/office, the day is over! And you still haven’t finished what you’re initially working on.

The Fix: Plan your errands ahead when you know there’ll be less traffic. Also, try to do your shopping when you know the stores won’t be as crowded and they’re in their least peak hours.

As for chores, set up one or two days during the week when you do all the dusting, cleaning, and decluttering. This way, even if you see catches your attention, you can push back in your mind and wait until ‘chore day’ rolls around.

A Final Note

We all get the same amount of time each day: 86,2400 seconds, 1,440 minutes, or 24 hours. It’s up to you to figure out how you’re going to spend that time. Sadly, many of us spend our days doing things that don’t really add any value to our lives—or anyone else’s for that matter.

The good news is you can train yourself to focus more and have fewer distractions. Make a conscious effort to add purpose and value to your life and follow through. You’ll soon notice you’re getting more done during your day than ever before!

OK, there are 5 ways you are wasting time every day. If you want to learn more time management strategies to make you more productive, then click on the featured resource below to download a free report that you can read at your leisure. Download, read it and take action 🙂