Tag Archives: attention

21

Perseverance

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Knowing what you want can be the most challenging thing to become aware of for many people.  Knowing what you want is a big thing. It sounds like it would be easy to state what you want, like enjoying a lot of money, love in your life, or freedom to do what you want.  All of these are great but very vague and lack purpose.  The why of any goal is going to provide the fuel to the achievement of any kind.

Every goal and desire will come with a series of steps that need to be accomplished to reach the great purpose.  This is the journey. As with any trip, it is going to take perseverance to run a successful conclusion.  That is the ability to keep moving forward despite obstacles and setbacks you encounter on your way.  Developing a solid case of perseverance is the key to most successful adventures because you can keep your eye on the prize and overcome whatever gets in your way.

Nothing Is Perfect

Many times, we start a journey, and we have expectations built up in our minds about what a successful conclusion will look like. We become so attached to that vision that any other decision, regardless of value, makes us suffer. Allowing things to come to us in their way and time makes the most sense.

It is often easier to do nothing at all and take no steps toward your goals because you are worried that you will fail. And then what will happen to your grand plans? Rather than worrying about failure, think of how you can turn a perceived setback into a positive in your life.  All goals and accomplishments are completed in a process, and there are lessons to learn on the journey. Nothing is going to go perfectly as you see it in your mind all the time.  There may be valuable nuggets of information that you need to find before ultimate success is yours. Often, the hurdles you have to jump and the rocks you navigate around provide the best memories.

Set an Intention and Stick To It

One of the best ways to maintain your momentum in pursuit of your goals is to develop a positive and powerful intention that is easy to understand and easy to stick with. The power of intention is to allow your energy to be directed toward a goal in a concentrated way.  It will also act as a compass for you when you get a little bit off track. Writing down your intentions gives you a chance to feel if it is something you want to accomplish.

Intentions are the key to starting the ignition of accomplishment and knowing exactly what we want.  As I said before, many people drift around different things, never committing to what they want. That leads to a life of floating around, fluttering from one thing to another. Choose an intention, make it a goal, follow it to its conclusion, and evaluate it. Just because you think you might want something doesn’t mean you do.  And that is just fine.  It is called learning, and that is what life is all about.  Set an intention and stick to it until it comes into reality. Then choose another one and do the same thing again.  How else can you live the life you live.

Attention Please

Along with thinking about where you would like to go is paying attention to daily focus. Are you distracted by work? Other projects? Fears? Lack of confidence? Or is your attention focused on the things in your day that will lead you toward your goals and intentions? Where your attention goes, that thing will grow.  If your attention is removed from it, then that thing will dwindle into nothingness.

Focus your attention on the positive things you want in your life. No matter what you want, make a plan, follow it through, focus on your goals, intentions, attention, and stick to it no matter what.

Take These Steps

  1. Determine what you want to achieve.
  2. Break down how you will get there.
  3. Write it down.
  4. Make it stick.
  5. Do one thing every day that brings you closer to your goals.

“It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.”-Albert Einstein.

“I will persist until I succeed. Always will I take another step. If that is of no avail, I will take another, and yet another. In truth, one step at a time is not too difficult. I know that small attempts, repeated, will complete any undertaking.”- Og Mandino.

“A failure is not always a mistake. It may simply be the best one can do under the circumstances. The real mistake is to stop trying.”-B.F. Skinner.

 

21

Creative

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gold-fish-jumping
Sometimes you have to think outside the box (or bowl) to solve a problem.

Being creative is one of the gifts of being human. We all can look at the same situation and develop different ways of solving the puzzle and finding a solution. Problem-solving can be one of the most valuable tools we have when making money, excelling in a career, or simply just being as high as ourselves.  Sometimes it can be difficult to muster a creative answer, but there are some things that you can do to make your thought process more creative and perhaps find a solution that you are seeking. Become a monarch of creativity.

Ask the Right Question

questions 22One of the most creative things a person can do is to ask the right question. And to me, the right question leads to a new solution. All questions bring with them an unlimited level of possibility.  How can I do this differently? What would make this easier? What can I contribute to that project? How can we complete it in less time? How can it be done more efficiently?

All of the questions you can ask will allow your mind to roam freely if you let it. Our brains are a great tool, but they can only work as well as we make them. So ask a question, and then allow your mind to work on it. The answers will come in their time, and then you must treat them appropriately.

Answers Lead to More Questions

The right follow up questions can lead to the most original solutions.
The right follow-up questions can lead to the most original solutions.

Each question asked represents the possibility every answer given is a dead-end. It sounds contradictory but thinks about it. Once a solution is determined, there is no more time wasted on the question. In the long run, one seemingly great solution may be only a significant first step in solving the problem, so the answers should lead to a new question.  How can we do this even better? What else can come from this that I don’t see right now? How can we make it even better?

These are just some simple examples of how to move your creativity into overdrive. Keep the mind working. Keep the solutions coming because of the next thought, maybe the one worth a million dollars.

Lose Yourself in Something

Losing yourself in a task is easy when you are young, but it is much more challenging for adults. First, you lose-find-in-lovehave to put in a little effort to find something that will take all of your attention. It can be drawing, painting, putting an engine together, building a model, knitting, sewing, or any other activity on which all your focus can be. As your focus and attention get tested, you lose track of time, and it allows your subconscious mind to work in overdrive, and you can get the answers to other questions that you have asked yourself.

As you work on a drawing or an engine and your conscious attention is captured, the limits of our minds rise, and the subconscious can create new ideas, and we are receptive to hearing them. That is where answers to problems come seemingly out of the blue.  Lose yourself to something creative, and your creativity in thought will grow.

Change things Up

All of us are creatures of habit. Our activities tend to fall into patterns that we find either safe or How-to-change-things-up-and-make-the-everydayenjoyable or both. These behaviors turn into routines that turn into a daily path. One of the most creative things you can do is change your daily activities. Take a new route to work, stop at a different food stop, take a slightly longer way, change things up.  Try something new to eat, talk with a total stranger about life. Try something you have never tried before.

By changing these simple things, you will force your mind to use different thought patterns and know what will result from that. Each new experience will expand your mind and your experience and allow your creativity to grow as well. Perhaps the answer you seek is inside of you all along, and you need the right catalyst to free it.  Changing things up might do this.

Read! Read. Read? Read…………….

The key to every kingdom is located in between the covers of a book
The key to every kingdom is located in between the covers of a book.

One of the most natural things a person can do to increase your creativity is to read quality books about topics that interest you. Reading provides a personal connection with the information in a book that is difficult to replicate in any other way. As a result, your mind can easily expand, and there are many possibilities for that growth. That is where creativity can come in large bounds.

In my experience, a mind expanded through the written word changes for the better permanently. That is why being literate is one of the greatest gifts we have. There are absolutely no limits on what you can learn if you can read. All you need is access to a library and the most exceptional thoughts in history expose to you. Read every chance you get, and your creativity will grow. Read, and you will find roads you never knew existed before. Read and grow to your true potential.

“The creative adult is the child who survived.” — Ursula LeGuin

“The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul.” — Dieter F. Uchtdorf

“Creativity doesn’t wait for that perfect moment. It fashions its perfect moments out of ordinary ones.” — Bruce Garrabrandt

“Everything you can imagine is real.” — Pablo Picasso

“Creativity is intelligence having fun.” — Albert Einstein

Imagine what you can create……….