Reflect on How Far You’ve Come

Posted on October 21, 2017 · Leave a Comment

I hope you’ve enjoyed our exploration of positive and creative thinking. More importantly, I hope you’ve taken the advice, tips, ideas, and strategies I’ve shared with you to heart and put them to good use. If you did, you should start to see some real change already. The good news is that it will continue to get better, more fun, and more creative, the more you practice what you’ve learned.

Let’s take a quick walk down memory lane and browse through all the different topics we covered over the past 29 days. Here’s a quick rundown of what we’ve covered.

  1. 30 Days of Positive and Creative Thinking
  2. The Power of Positive Thinking
  3. How Negative Thoughts Slow You Down
  4. How to Turn Negative Thoughts Positive
  5. What is Creative Thinking?
  6. Sometimes All it Takes is Time
  7. The Power of Combining Minds
  8. Affirmations Can Help You Stay on Track
  9. Creative Thinking Starts by Looking at the Problem from a Different Angle
  10. How Journaling Can Help You Cultivate Positive Thinking Habits
  11. Cultivating a Creative and Positive Thinking Climate Around You
  12. The Power of Open Ended Questions and Discussion
  13. Having Fun Helps Cultivate Positive and Creative Thinking
  14. Surround Yourself With Inspiration
  15. Never Stop Learning: It Keeps Your Mind Sharp
  16. Keep Your Eyes Open: Creative Solutions are Everywhere
  17. Your Brain is a Muscle: Work It Out
  18. Words to Watch Out For
  19. Time to Lose the Guilt
  20. The Power of Brainstorming
  21. Taking Risks Sparks Creativity
  22. Challenge Yourself to Say Yes More
  23. Kick Start Creative Thinking By Suspending Limits
  24. Dealing With Setbacks in a Positive Way
  25. Reading About Creative and Positive Thinkers is Inspirational
  26. A Mind at Rest Will Surprise You With Creative Solutions
  27. Don’t Let Critics and Nay-Sayers Get To You
  28. How to Get Out of a Funk and Back yo Your Positive, Sparkling Self
  29. Playing and Hobbies Aren’t a Waste of Time

What has had the biggest impact on you? What tips and ideas have you found the most helpful? Those are the posts that you want to come back to again and again.

Take a few minutes today to reflect on not only how far you’ve come, but more importantly how this simple 30 day challenge has influenced you and changed you for the better. What positive experiences have you had as a result of working towards creative and positive thinking? Real change takes time, but at the very least, you should have gotten a glimpse of what’s possible. Keep up the good work going forward, and keep making progress towards more positive and creative thinking.

Filed Under: 30 Day Challenges, Positive and Creative Thinking Tagged With: , ,

Surround Yourself With Inspiration

Posted on October 5, 2017 · Leave a Comment

Our brains are complex and complicated devices. There’s still a lot to learn about how they work and what influences them. One thing we do know is that outside cues can and will influence how we think and feel. That’s why it can be helpful to surround yourself with inspiration.

Becoming a more positive thinker isn’t always easy. We start that way as children, but for one reason or another, life teaches us that it isn’t all sunshine and roses. Sometimes, the experiences we go through have a way of cutting the joy and positivity right out of our thoughts. We get in the habit of focusing on the negative, the bad stuff. That’s a bad habit to get into and like any bad habit; it can be hard to break it.

Forming a new habit requires you to make the decision to do something different over and over again. For that to happen, you need reminders. You need reasons to change. That’s why inspiration is so important. Things, people, and ideas that inspire remind us to try harder, do better, and keep pushing until these new habits are firmly established.

Your first step is to find out what inspires and motivates you. Maybe it’s an inspirational quote. Maybe it’s having a goal in front of you and tracking your progress. Maybe it’s pictures of your family. Find out what inspires you; then, start to surround yourself with it.

Let’s say quotes and affirmations are what inspire you. Your next job is to surround yourself by them. Have your favorite quotes and affirmations printed up, and hang them on the walls of your home and office. Get crafty and come up with your own pieces of art that incorporate the quotes.

Write down your affirmations, and stick them to your bathroom mirror, fridge, or computer monitor. Put them in places where you’ll see them and read them multiple times per day. Order a mug with your favorite word or quote on it and use it every morning. If you’re so inclined, get a tattoo with your favorite quote, affirmation, or power word. Do what you can to surround yourself with inspiration.

Use it as a reminder and motivator. Use it because it makes you happy and puts you in a good mood. Use it to start creating those positive thinking habits until they become completely natural and an integral part of who and what you are.

Inspiration is your friend. It’s also ever-changing. Let’s go back to the quotes and affirmations example. Those will work great for a while. Then you will start to go blind to all those visual reminders of thinking positive and creative thought. They will blur into the background, and you will stop being able to use them as constant positive reinforcement. That’s why it’s important to change things up and find new inspiration on a regular basis. Keep an eye out for it, and you will find it.

Essential Oil: Dream Catcher™

Dream Catcher™ is designed to harness the power of positive dreams when used aromatically up to an hour three times daily, helping you realize your desires and stay on the path to fulfillment. This blend contains Royal Hawaiian™ sandalwood, Tangerine, Ylang ylang, Black pepper, Bergamot, Anise, Junipe, Geranium, Blue cypress, Davana, Jasmine, Matricaria, Blue tansy, Rose, Grapefruit, Spearmint, Lemon and Ocotea.

Filed Under: 30 Day Challenges, Positive and Creative Thinking Tagged With: , , , ,

Affirmations Can Help You Stay On Track

Posted on September 28, 2017 · Leave a Comment

Creating new habits is hard. Changing your thought patterns is even harder. It takes dedication and constant reminders to make it happen. Without those, it’s too easy to fall back into our old ways. That’s where affirmations come in. They can help you stay on track and serve as a reminder of what you want to change and practice.

If you’re new to affirmations, I encourage you to give them a try. They may seem a little silly at first but are a great way to get your mind ready to embrace new habits and thought processes. Positive affirmations are usually crafted in the present tense and work for any changes you want to make in your life from getting more exercise or organizing your house to getting a promotion at work or growing your business.

For this post, we’re going to focus on using affirmations to help us improve our positive and creative thinking. Here are a couple of examples of affirmations to get you thinking about writing your own.

Positive Thinking Affirmations

  • I am full of positive thoughts from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to sleep.
  • I am full of optimism about what the day brings.
  • I find positivity even in the most difficult and stressful situations.
  • I am full of optimistic thoughts.
  • My positive thinking affects those around me in a beneficial way.

Creative Thinking Affirmations

  • I come up with creative solutions with ease.
  • Brilliant ideas and clever solutions come to me all the time.
  • Every day I come up with more creative thoughts.
  • Fresh new ideas come to me daily.
  • Creative energy flows through me.

While these examples are a great starting point, it’s important that you make the affirmations your own. Change them up or write something from scratch that resonates with you. Then, get in the habit of saying these affirmations several times throughout the day. At the very least, get in the habit of reciting your affirmations every morning as soon as you get up.

I find it helpful to write these affirmations down. The process of writing them by hand alone will help you remember them and start to internalize them. Then, hang the note with your affirmation or affirmations for the day in a prominent place.

You can stick them on your bathroom mirror or pin them up in a prominent place on your desk. Make sure you choose a spot where you will see the note several times per day. These visual reminders will help you read and recite your affirmations several times throughout the day.

Last but not least, I want you to realize that affirmations change and evolve over time. When it no longer serves its purpose or you feel that you’ve mastered that part, change it up. Craft a new affirmation and replace the old one. Rinse and repeat as often as you like.

Essential Oil: Live with Passion™

This blend revives the zest for life and improves internal energy with a combination of Royal Hawaiian™ sandalwood, Clary,  Ginger, Jasmine, Angelica, Patchouli, Cedarwood, Helichrysum, Melissa and Neroli, formulated specifically to help attain an optimistic attitude. Diffuse up to 30 minutes three times daily.

Filed Under: 30 Day Challenges, Positive and Creative Thinking Tagged With: , , , ,

Sometimes All It Takes Is Time

Posted on September 26, 2017 · Leave a Comment

We live in a fast paced world where we need the answer or results right away… or even better, yesterday. Instant gratification is the name of the game. And, that game comes at a big price. Not only does it cause a lot of stress and give us less time to relax and slow down, it also affects how we think. We don’t always make the best decisions when we’re rushed.

Creative thinking takes time. You have to explore all your options and get through the obvious solutions before you can even make it into the realm of thinking creatively. That doesn’t happen instantly. You have to allow the ideas and thoughts to roll around in your head until a creative solution starts to take shape.

Positive thinking also takes time. We sometimes simply have to wallow in self-pity for a little bit at first. Making the shift from thinking quite a few negative thoughts to positive ones doesn’t happen overnight.

My message to you is this. Give yourself time. Work on it starting now, but don’t expect major changes right away. Be patient with yourself and get there. Don’t despair or give up when a perfect creative solution doesn’t present itself right away. It will come, but it will come in its own good time.

Here are three tips to help you get through those times when positive and creative thinking simply takes a little extra time. These are three things you shouldn’t be doing and what to do instead.

Don’t Force It – You Really Can’t

The hardest thing to understand initially is that you can’t force this type of thinking. Just because you’re working on a deadline or someone is waiting for you to come up with a brilliant solution, isn’t going to make it appear out of thin air. Yes, there are things you can do to speed it up like practicing creative and positive thinking regularly, brainstorming ideas, and looking at something from all possible different angles. But at the end of the day, you can’t force it.

Don’t Give Up – Good Things Are Coming

Which brings us to our next point, just because things aren’t moving as quickly as you’d like, doesn’t mean you should give up and move on. Be patient. You’ll get there; and when you do, it will be well worth it.

Don’t Be Afraid To Walk Away

No, I’m not talking about giving up. Instead, walk away for a few minutes. Take a breather, think about something else. Go for a walk; go have lunch, go play with the kids…. Do anything that isn’t related to the problem you’re mulling over.

Your subconscious will continue to work towards a solution and one of two things are going to happen. Either, the perfect idea will pop into your head while you’re doing something else, or you’ll get back to work and looking at things with fresh eyes and a fresh mind will make what you should do glaringly obvious.

Essential Oils: Motivation™

Motivation™ stimulates feelings of action and accomplishment, providing positive energy to help overcome feelings of fear and procrastination. Diffuse this blend for 30 minutes up to three times a day, and inhale the scents of Roman chamomile, Black spruce, Ylang ylang and Lavender.

Filed Under: 30 Day Challenges, Positive and Creative Thinking Tagged With: , , ,

The Power of Positive Thinking

Posted on September 21, 2017 · Leave a Comment

Yesterday, we talked a little about why and how it is important what you think about. We looked at the impact both positive and negative thinking can have on us and those around us. Today, I want to focus a little on the power and importance of positive thinking.

Let’s start with a little secret. You can do and accomplish anything that you think you can. Let that sink in for a minute. Read it again. I call it a little secret, but once you start to recognize the truth in this statement and start to live your life by it, it can have a huge impact.

You have actually seen it in action lots of times. You see it in the preschooler who’s told by his dad that he can ride a bike without training wheels. You see it in athletes who run faster, jump higher, and accomplish more now than ever because they can see themselves doing it before they approach the start line. You see it in your friend or neighbor who sets out to build an internet side business and creates something valuable out of nothing.

When you train yourself to think positively, you increase the opportunities that open up to you. It makes you more confident and causes you to say “Yes” more often when those opportunities knock on your door. In short, positive thinking can make you more successful.

Let me illustrate with a simple example. Two middle school girls audition for a part in the school play. The first – let’s call her Jane – thinks there’s no way she’s getting the part she’s auditioning for. The second one – let’s call her Jill – practices positive thinking and visualizes that she already has the part.

When Jane auditions, she’s timid and shy. She doesn’t put a lot of energy into her performance since she’s convinced she won't get the part. It shows in her audition, and unsurprisingly, the play director passes on her and assigns her a minor background role instead. Jill, on the other hand, walks in with confidence, and while her performance may not be flawless, the director sees an attitude and talent that he can work with. Jill gets the part. That’s positive thinking in action.

It’s not all mumbo-jumbo and attracting positive energy from the universe. It’s about creating a positive attitude, promoting self-esteem, and believing enough in yourself to push further and try harder. Positive thinking isn’t going to heal your broken leg, fix the leak in your bathroom, or make an extra $500 per month fall into your lap. Instead, it helps you get through recovery and physical therapy with a better attitude. It makes you call the plumber or get out the tools to fix the bathroom leak. And, it encourages you to ask your boss for a raise or promotion and actually get one!

Essential Oil: Clarity™

Clarity™ blends Basil, Rosemary, Peppermint, and other essential oils for an aroma that invites a sense of clarity and alertness. These qualities are important for monitoring our thoughts and focusing them on thinking positively rather than negatively. Diffuse Clarity for up to 30 minutes three times a day.

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