For each of us, the universe is different. A homeless man may view the universe as unfair, hard and tough. A rich man may view the universe as a lovely place full of luxury and pleasure. Both of them are viewing the same universe, it is just different because of their perceptions of it and their life experiences.

This is a fundamental key to understanding, to know that how you perceive the universe is how it is to you. If you feel it is full of fear and hatred, then it will be. If you think it is full of love and happiness, it is. Using some of the techniques discussed in this, and other articles, you can start to reprogram the way you perceive the universe and change your life!

Think about how many times you have feared something happening and then it has. For example, you might be worried that you are going to bump your car, and then you do. Was it a premonition or did you create it? Compare this to the amount of times you have looked forward to something and then it has happened. Usually the fear is a much stronger emotion and focus, which causes the object of that fear/thought to manifest much more quickly.

Of course, thought and belief does not just create the universe on an emotional and psychological level, but also on a material level. We may fear that we are not good with money and hence we are not. You can use your will and focus on manifesting items that you want to further your life with. Remember that you can only manifest things you believe you can have. You may wish for a million dollars, but unless you really believe you can have it, you will not get it.

You need to be aware that things are not just going to fall out of the air and land on your lap, though on occasion they may well do so, literally as well as figuratively. It sometimes takes a little while for what you want to manifest to appear. Sometimes it requires faith and patience on your part. It might be the Universe is testing you to see if you really want it and will really dedicate yourself to getting it before you get it. You cannot sit back and wait for what you want to manifest.

There is a saying “God helps those who help themselves”. This is true. When you are manifesting it is essential that you listen to your intuition and follow your instincts. It often also depends on whether what you are trying to manifest is in tune with your life’s purpose or not. If it is not then you have an uphill struggle to manifest it. Also, if you manifest for selfish needs and with your ego then it is not likely to work. It works best when you manifest for the greater good, selflessly, and from your higher self.

When working on manifesting remember to keep your mind open as to how it is going to appear in your life. For example, many of us may want to manifest more money. We have a mental program that says, “more money means I have to work more”. This is not necessarily true. You might manifest more money from a promotion, a raise at work, a change of job or career, from a competition win, an inheritance, and many other ways. You need to be open to this because if you mentally limit the ways the Universe can provide to you then it is going to be much harder for what you want to come into your life. Listen to your intuition too because it will help guide you. You might get the urge to buy a newspaper suddenly. You buy it and notice the exact car you want for sale in it. Our intuition is from our higher self and will guide us if we listen to it.

You can use decrees, affirmations, and positive visualisation to help you create what you want in your universe. This does not just have to be limited to material items, but you can work on bringing more love, more joy and many other things into your life and the lives of those around you. When you are working on manifesting things such as these into your life look to the root cause of what you are lacking. For example, you might feel you are lacking love in your life. Examine the cause and you might see it is because of a lack of self-worth or self-love, or because of something in your childhood. Once you are aware of why you can work on dealing with the issue and healing yourself. Then you will find it much easier to bring, and to keep, what you desire in your life.

Another exercise you can do to help you manifest is to realise the abundance of the universe. Abundance will be the subject of another article, and is dealt with fully within the course, but take a walk outside some time and look at how abundant nature is. See how freely nature gives and how much is given. Think about this and how abundance can be a part of your life.

You can use affirmations such as:

* I am worthy of love and respect from others and myself

* I have an abundance of money in my life

* I am good with money and spend it wisely

* I open myself to the abundance of the universe

* I am in tune with my higher self

* I accept that I am a good and worthy person

Finally, remember these points:

Believe in what you are trying to manifest

Listen to your intuition

Manifest from your higher self and in harmony with your life’s purpose

Manifesting is not just limited to material items. You can manifest more love, happiness, peace, and much more

Manifest for others, not just yourself

That YOU create the universe you live in, so changing your perceptions of it, changes the universe

Believe in yourself and what you can achieve. You can manifest anything you desire in your life, good or bad. Harness the power of your sub-conscious mind in manifesting your desires through the Manifestation Audio CD at http://www.stateofhypnosis.com/audio/abundance/ma.php

Developing intuition starts by realizing you have it already. If you’ve ever had a hunch about something, that was intuition. Intuition is just your mind using more than what you are consciously aware of. But can you trust your intuition? How do you improve it?

Developing Intuition In Three Steps

1. Recognize it and encourage it.

2. Study it to make it more trustworthy.

3. Give it good information to work with.

Gary Kasparov will admit that a computer can calculate chess positions many moves further ahead than he can. Yet he still beats the best computers out there because of his intuitive grasp of the game. His experience allows him to combine analysis with a “sense” of which move is best. Try to find areas in your own life where you intuitively operate.

Of course, intuition is also a warning device. Both my wife and I felt we shoudn’t get on that bus in Ecuador. This is no psychic power. Crowded busses are prime locations for pickpockets. A drunk man was bumping into people repeatedly. We didn’t consciously pay attention, but these things registered in our minds, warning us. We felt “something isn’t right here.” When we ignored our intuition, I was robbed.

When I bought a conversion van, I saw them all over. Maybe you’ve had a similar experience. Looking for and recognizing a thing trains your mind to find more of it. The same process will happen if you watch for your intuition – you’ll start to see more of it.

Unfortunately, a strong hunch can be for irrelevant reasons too. If you were hit by a yellow taxi as a child, you might have “intuitive” hunches not to get into yellow taxis for the rest of your life. So even learning to recognize your intuition and encourage it may leave you wondering when to trust it.

Study Your Intuition

Start questioning your hunches. If we had asked why we felt bad about that bus, it may have occurred to us, “Oh yeah, crowded busses are a bad idea – we know that.” Study your strong feeling about that taxi, and you might say, “Oh, it’s just my fear of yellow taxis.” Get in the habit of paying attentionto and studying your intuitive feelings.

Where does your intuition work best? If you’re always right about your intuitive stock picks, give a little credence to them. On the other hand, if your hunches about people are usually wrong, don’t follow them. Just pay attention more, and you’ll be developing intuition about your intuition.

Give Your Intution Good Information

Your skill, knowledge and experience determine the potential effectiveness of your intuition. No weak chess player will never intuitively beat that computer, like Kasparov can. Learn enough about a subject, before expecting good hunches about it – or before trusting the hunches. Work in the area you want more intuition in. When enough information is in your mind, it will go to work for you with or without your conscious participation, so feed it well.

Recognize your intuition and you’ll have hunches and ideas more often. Study it and you’ll learn when to trust it. Give it good information and you’ll be repaid with good hunches and ideas. This is the simple formula for developing intuition.

Can creative thinking and even spontaneity come from a highly organized approach? Yes! For example, if you watch great comedians closely, you’ll see that they have certain habits of mind. Even the most spontaneous ones get better with practice, because they’re training their brains to find the humor in situations.

In the same way, you can train yourself for more creative thinking. Just start cultivating the right habits in your mind. Why not start training your brain today, with some simple techniques?

Creative Thinking Techniques

Want the mind of a creative inventor? Start redesigning everything you see. Imagine better cars, faster ways to serve food, or better light bulbs. If you do this every day for three weeks, it will become a habit.

Want to be the person who always has something interesting to say? Train yourself to look at things from other perpectives. What would the Buddha say about this? How would a Martian view it? What’s the opposite perspective? The point isn’t to ask others silly questions, but to ask yourself, to see what interesting ideas result. Do this until it is a habit, and you’ll always have something interesting to add to a conversation.

Want systematic creativity in poetry? Put a word on each of 40 cards; 10 nouns, 10 verbs, 10 adjectives, and 10 random words. Shuffle, deal out four cards, and write a 4-line poem using one of the words in each line. My wife has had poems published that were created with this technique. Your mind will find a poetic use for any word if you use this method often.

Solve Problems Creatively

Maybe you’ve heard of problem solving techniques such as “attributes listing,” and “concept combination.” More creative thinking doesn’t come from just knowing these techniques, though. You have to use them until they become a part of your habitual thinking process.

Imagine you want to invent a new bicycle. If you’ve trained your mind in “assumption challenging,” you’ll automatically begin to ask things like, “Are wheels necessary?” “Does it have to go outside?” What if the “bike” was indoors, and pedaling it ran a video screen? You could “steer” through endless different scenes.

You won’t always have great ideas, but you’ll have enough ideas to make it more likely that you’ll find a useful one. This “spontaneous” creativity will be because of your brain training exercise. Why not start developing those habits of creative thinking?

Transformational Counseling is about assisting another to transform his life. Transforming ones life is not about changing it. While life is much about doing differently, the genesis of the transformation is about a person altering or transforming his belief or thought of who he thinks he is. We tend to believe that our life is determined or influenced by people, places, things, situations and circumstance and that who we are is the mere accumulation of our past experiences but this is not so. Rather, it is our thoughts and beliefs that determine our experiences and life and also that we are completely and solely responsible for their creation. What we think and believe, especially about ourselves, determines our emotions and behavior in the world and it is our behavior that merely validates what we think and believe about ourselves. Furthermore, we believe or think that we know who we are in life but the reality is that we truly do not. Much of who we are really being we are simply not present to. Much of our life is spent in pretense and who we are really being is hidden from us.

Given that much of our life is lived in pretense, from the construct of ego, becoming present to that which is hidden, to who we are being in life, is absolutely necessary for transformation. It is in that which is primarily hidden from us that one will discover what is determining ones life, referred to here as ones self-limiting belief. The first component of the transformational process is for one to become present to the hidden thoughts and beliefs that have been limiting him in life and in particular to his self-limiting belief. It is in the being of the self-limiting belief that one will discover the primary constraint or barrier to his life, to him living a life that he loves and living it powerfully. We live life from who we think we are. Who we think we are forms the context for our life. Having the awareness or distinction of the self-limiting belief allows one the ability to not be it, to not have his life be merely the probable almost certain future from the past. Without the distinction of the self-limiting belief one will continue to create his life from the backdrop of this ideational barrier and as a result life will appear much as it did in the past.

Becoming present to that which has been hidden, to that which has been truly determining his being in life, allows one the opportunity to transform his life. Once one gets who he has been being in life, the second component of transformative process is for the individual to begin to create his life as a possibility. Once the distinction of the self-limiting belief is gotten, the individual is now able to truly create a new possibility for himself and his life. Getting the self-limiting belief creates the space or an opening for a possibility or possibilities to be invented not as a result or product of the barrier or constraint but from or out of nothing. It is only from nothing that possibility can truly be created. As with the self-limiting belief, possibility exists in language. Once one gets the language that he has been being, that has defined and limited him through being his self-limiting belief, it is at this point that he can begin to recreate himself through the power of his word. Who we are is our word. In is in ones language or word created out of nothing that one has access to possibility and transformation.

The technique described below is designed to assist an individual in becoming present to his self-limiting belief and in the process to create the space or opening for him to invent a possibility or possibilities for recreating his life.

1. Find a relaxing and comfortable space to sit in for approximately one hour. Arrange for this space to be free of any distractions. Just allow yourself to begin to relax. Become present to where and who you are. The use of therapeutic relaxation music can promote the development of a very profound sense of relaxation to enhance this experience.

2. Take a notebook and begin to write down everything that you believe describes or defines who you are. Let your mind wander and do not try to filter or block out anything. Just let whatever comes up about yourself, how you feel and what you think about yourself, to be written down. Who you think you are or that which bests describes you may appear in single words or short phrases. If in a group, share your description of yourself with others. Furthermore, make two lists as there will appear to be both positives and negatives aspects about who you think you are.

3. Sit your notebook down, close your eyes and begin to relax deeply again. Again, the use of therapeutic relaxation music will assist you in the process of creating a very deep state of relaxation. As you begin to move into a deep state of relaxation allow yourself to begin to drift back through time, back through your life, back through your adulthood, adolescence and into your childhood. Allow yourself to become present to how you were being, experiences, thoughts and feelings, through the various phases or stages of your life. Just become present to or notice what appears for you.

4. Open your eyes and return to work on your notebook. Take a look at what you have written and add anything that you became present to about yourself during the above mentioned relaxation exercise. Again, do not filter out anything but merely allow whatever there is to come to the surface, both the positive and negative words that best describes who you think and feel you are or were.

5. Once you have come to a completion of creating the lists, both positive and negative, consider that the positives of who you think yourself to be form the pretense of your life and that their design or function is to fix the negatives of who you think you are.

6. Allow yourself to become present to the negatives you have written down. Notice which one of the negatives best describes who you are, what you commonly believe and feel about yourself, what you have experienced in your mind in the past and even now. Declare the negative aspect that is familiar to you to be your self-limiting belief.

7. Place your notebook in your lap. Allow yourself to become fully present to the fact that what you have written is you, is who you believe yourself to be. Become present to an inauthentic way of being, the positive as pretense and the negatives as that which we hide from ourselves and the world.

8. Place the notebook into your past. If you are right handed place your notebook to your left. If you are left handed place your notebook to your right. Place the notebook approximately three feet from you.

9. Once you place your notebook into your past allow yourself to become present to where your notebook is in relation to your body, to your right or left. Allow yourself to again become present to that which you have written in your notebook is who you believe you are and that it exists to either your right or left.

10. Once you become present to who you believe yourself to be, to the description of yourself as you have written, allow yourself to become present to what now lies in front of you. Given that who you think you are is either to your left or right, become present to what exists in front of you is nothing, an opening from which everything and anything is possible and can be created.

11. Inside the nothing that appears in front of you, invent a possibility or possibilities for yourself and your life. Declare your possibility in language or word, of who you will take on being in life, for yourself. Furthermore, this declaration becomes your personal affirmation of who you will be in and for the world.

12. Repeat this exercise everyday. Repeating this exercise daily will allow one to continue to stay present to his self limiting belief so as to not be it and also to the possibility or possibilities that he has created and invented for himself and his life. Continuing this exercise will also allow the further possible unveiling of the self-limiting belief. The self-limiting belief that one initially becomes present to may reveal even deeper meaning for who one is or has been being.

The exercise outlined above is about the work of the first two components of Transformational Counseling and one beginning the process of transformation. Once one gets the distinction of his self-limiting belief and creates a possibility or possibilities for himself and his life, the third component of transformation involves learning the process of enrollment. Enrollment is a powerful technique for allowing one to stay living into his possibility and out of his self-limiting belief. The fourth component of transformation is about creating a daily plan. The daily plan allows one the opportunity to continue to live into or generate his possibility in his life on a daily basis. The fifth component of transformation involves a commitment to stay in the conversation of transformation. It is in staying in the conversation that one experiences the nonlinear nature of transformation thereby keeping the process alive in his life.

Harry Henshaw, Ed.D., LMHC
http://www.enhancedhealing.com

Do you feel heavy in your head when you walk around? Is your score in IQ tests too low? You may not feel as active or quick as early or you may be forgetting very commonly used words. This need not be the situation that cannot be dealt with. You can eat certain food items which will help boost your brainpower, clear up your brain and make you think at a quick pace.

Hence if you want to increase your intelligence level (and your IQ- your score in IQ tests) to the highest level read the information given below. It will help you clear up your brain and you will have great thinking power and ability to score higher in IQ tests. Your memory also depends on your eating habits.

Fish Oil

“Fish is a food for your brain” is an old belief. But nowadays fish is very polluted with mercuy and dangerous substances, so I will not recommend fish for consumption. Instead, I suggest to eat fish oil. It has fats which contain DocasaHexanenoic Acid and is beneficial for the brain and acts as a protective layer.

A majority of our brain is made up of fat and that fat is either DocasaHexanenoic Acid or Arachidonic acid. Arachidonic acid is found in unprocessed dairy products like butter and DocasaHexanenoic Acid is found only in fish and not in any other plant or vegetation.

It is very important to use a fish oil which is exceptionally good and has good reputation. I have done research and have clinical with patients, which shows the following trends.

1. Liquid form of fish oil is far better than capsules.
2. Not all brands are good
3. Carlson’s brand is the best and purest of all existing brands today.

It may not be the only brand that is exceptionally good, but till now I have come across many and have found that carlson’s brand is the best as far as fish or cod liver oil is concerned. You can find this brand at Mercola.com or at any health store near your house.

Vegetables

Nothing can ever match the nutritions that pure vegetables can provide us. Alzheimer’s has been known to occur because of deficiency of folic acid (green vegetables are very rich with it). Similarly, there are many other elements, antioxidants and phytochemicals that vegetables provide us with and can help us in keeping our brains sharp.

The easiest way to eat enough of vegetables is to prepare vegetable juice on a regular basis.

But the type of your metabolism is a key factor to decide what all you need to consume. For example, if you are a protein metabolic type, you need not eat vegetables. You can have half of what is usually recommended. That is for a protein type adult, one can eat half a pound of vegetable and this will be sufficient.

If you are a protein type of guy your diet should consist of low potassium vegetables like beans. Lettuces and the usual diet like collard greens have high potassium content and may cause biochemical imbalance. Also, if you have a metabolic type you also don’t need much vegetable juice consumption. A carbohydrate metabolic type wil beneft if he consumes more vegetables like collard greens, kale, Swiss chard etc. These are very much not suggested for the protein types.

I do recommend organic food if you want to get the most nutritious input, but if you cannot afford to buy them, don’t give up eating vegetables altogether. Eating vegetables in any form, organic or not is good and better not have them in your ration at all.

Raw Eggs

The best source for high quality nutrition is raw whole egg. It is also very much affordable by all. It is especially for those who are protein deficient. You may face some difficulty initially to eat them, but you will greatly improve your health, if you eat raw egg. Boiled or cooked eggs will not result in the same, so the lesser you cook the egg the more nutrition you will consume.

Creativity is a quality that we all have buried inside of us, one way or the other. It involves the invention of something new or the re-invention of something already existing to make it useful of interesting.

Some people’s creative abilities are closer to the surface and one can easily see the manifestations of them. People say that their creativity is “inborn”. For others, expressing creativity takes more time and cultivation. The important thing to note is that we can all be creative. You just have to take steps to extract it from within you. Try the following:

1. Change your perspective.

You might have heard the phrase ‘Think outside the box’. You should try looking at the situation from a different point of view. Change your perspective. Consider all factors that are affected by your problem or your concern. Try to breakdown the problem into several elements then shuffle them. Think of what would happen if an idea is replaced. This aspect is important in enhancing creativity because it helps you remove possible fixations that may hinder creativity.

2. Mentally move away from your current location.

Imagine how another person would react if subjected in the same situation. Picture how different situations would continue when dealing with the same problem. Application in different settings can be also be done; and then from there, adapt a solution to the current setting.

3. Let your imagination run wild.

Exercise your imagination. Modification can trigger creativity because you see things in a different light. You can also try to exaggerate or think of the extremes, be it magnification or minimization of something. Thinking of the possible differences between these two situations could produce ideas. This is the ultimate brain exercise.

4. Your comfort spot.

The environment has to be right. You should have somewhere you can focus without being unnecessarily disturbed so you can give a problem your full attention. This should extend to the people you are with. You tend to do better at something when you are with like-minded people. To put it simply, hang out with creative people to help enhance your creative abilities.

Most of the time, people tend to be more creative when they are with people who are doing the same thing. It was also found that if you wish to be more creative, you should try hanging out with creative people.

5. Time, time, time.

You can’t rush creativity. Hurrying does not help in the outflow of ideas. Your mind tends to go into a state of slight disarray when you are trying to force things. Studies show that results produced in this state are generally lacking. If you are low on time, then keep a list of activities like this one close to you. Go over each of the activities and exercise each one. Give it time.

6. Get help…communicate your ideas to others.

A different view of the problem could help. Better yet, many different views! Never be shy to ask. Diversity is very helpful in relation with creativity. Organize a brainstorming session. The spontaneous generation of new ideas helps in formulation of more ideas. The products of brainstorming can be the raw material in the construction of the idea.

Remember that in brainstorming, 4 rules are followed for it to be successful:
– There should be no criticisms. Criticism hinders the free flow of ideas. This can be postponed until the session has ended.
– Combining and/or modifying ideas are encouraged.
– Quantity is preferred over quality in brainstorming.
– Weird or strange ideas are encouraged.

These are just some ideas to get your creative juices going. They can be adapted to suit each individual. A large amount of it is down to you. How inventive can you be? How open are you? Remove the boundaries from your mind and you will find your creativity will increase.

Many great things have started as an simple, creative idea. Consider donating some of your best ideas to help others. The more creative you are, the more ideas you will be able to create. You can be creative even if you don’t think you are.

I have known many people that were scared to use a computer for the first few times. However, after diving into it they became more comfortable. They were willing to take a risk and make some mistakes. The result was an ability to learn and do things they would never be able to do without the use of a computer.

Being creative and thinking up world-changing ideas occurs in the same way. Everyone can be creative but they have to be willing to start. The creative process will then become more natural over time.

Try the following tips to help you on your journey to be more creative:

1. Record your ideas on whatever is comfortable and convenient at the moment. What is important is that you record your ideas. In the past, I have forgotten ideas that I thought of when I was on a walk. Now I carry a digital recorder with me on those walks. At other times I use my computer, notepad or journal. Choose what will work best for you and make sure you have a way to record your ideas at all times. You never know when an important idea will surface.

2. Don’t limit yourself to ideas that seem possible. Capture all of your ideas. Even those that seem impossible to implement are important for a couple of reasons. First, what seems impossible to you may not be impossible sometime in the future or for someone else. Second, impossible ideas encourage further creative ideas that might be more likely to be implemented.

3. Change your scenery or location. A change in scenery can stimulate the creativity inside you. A change might be as simple as looking out a window. You can also visit someplace new like a park, beach, or mall. The new environment can foster new ideas.

4. Read on many topics. It is amazing how many things in a totally unrelated subject can prompt new ideas. By broadening your knowledge into more areas, you make your creativity potential grows.

5. Go for a walk. Some of my best ideas have happened when I was on a walk. This applies to any form of moderate exercise. I have heard of others that have written articles and speeches while waalking or jogging.

6. Focus in 10-15 minute increments. It does not take a significant amount of time to brainstorm some potential ideas. In fact, brainstorming works best when done for short periods of time. Concentrate for a few minutes on generate as many ideas to address a specific area or problem. Then capture anything that comes to mind throughout the rest of the day (see tip #1). You will have several ideas for consideration for little investment of time. One of those could become something tremendous for helping others.

7. Think big. What question are you asking to prompt your ideas? The larger the question, the larger the impact those ideas may have on the world. You can start by addressing smaller problems but don’t limit yourself to those. You have unique experiences, knowledge and talents that should be applied to helping others on a grand scale as well.

Follow these tips and you will be on your way to generating ideas that have the potential to change the world. Don’t let your previous lack of creativity keep you from developing and donating your ideas. Get started today.

Each of us has the power to be creative. It’s part of our natural make-up as human beings. The trouble is that, too often, we block our natural creativity and so make errors in thinking and give ourselves more problems than we should. Here are 7 ways to open up your natural creativity and keep the channels unblocked.

1. Don’t Make Assumptions. When we assume, we often make an “ass” out of “u” and “me”. Assumptions are examples of lazy thinking. We simply don’t wait to get all the information we need to come to the right conclusions. There is the story of the customer at the bank who after cashing a cheque and turning to leave, returns and says: “Excuse me, I think you made a mistake.” The cashier responds, “I’m sorry but there’s nothing I can do. You should have counted it. Once you walk away we are no longer responsible.” Whereupon the customer replies: “Well, okay. Thanks for the extra $20.”
Tip: When you feel yourself wanting to draw conclusions, just wait until you have all the information.

2. See Things From Other Points Of View. A truly open mind is willing to accept that, not only do other people have other just as valid points of view from theirs, but that these other points of view may be more valid. A story is told that the modernist painter Pablo Picasso was once traveling on a train across Spain when he got into conversation with a rich businessman who was dismissive of modern art. As evidence that modern art didn’t properly represent reality, he took out a photo of his wife from his wallet and said: “This is how my wife should look, not in some silly stylized representation.” Picasso took the photo, studied it for a few moments and asked: “This is your wife?” The businessman proudly nodded. “She’s very small,” observed Picasso wryly.
Tip: Don’t have a monopoly on how things are. Things aren’t always what they seem. Be ready to consider other points of view.

3. Avoid Yo-Yo Thinking. Some people tend to have a tendency to swing from a highly positive mood one minute to a highly negative one the next, all because of what they see in front of them. It’s like a yo-yo: up one minute, down the next. It’s far more healthy to stay neutral and not let emotions get the better of you.
Tip: Remember that things are rarely as good – or as bad – as you think they are.

4. Get Rid Of Lazy Thinking Habits. Habit can be a major stumbling block to clear thinking and another example of laziness. Try this experiment. Write down the Scottish surnames Macdonald, Macpherson, and Macdougall and ask someone to pronounce them. Now follow these with the word Machinery and see what happens. Most people are likely to mis-pronounce it. This is because we tend to think in habitual ways and don’t like what doesn’t fit.
Tip: Don’t think that, just because things happened in a certain way once before, that they will happen like that again.

5. Don’t Think Like An Old Person, Think Like A Child. Research shows that the number of synapses, or connections, in the brain is greater in a child of two than in an average adult. The reason for this is that, while a child of two has no limiting world view, as adults we do. It’s like a sculptor who starts off with a large block of clay, more than he needs, and then gradually removes the clay as he moulds his sculpture. If we use our brain like a child, accepting everything without judgment, we can actually halt and reverse the brain ageing process.
Tip: Don’t worry about the myth of age. With the right stimulus and a passion for learning, you can actually improve your brain’s powers.

6. See The Detail As Well As The Big Picture. You may know the poem by John Godfrey Saxe called “The Blind Men and the Elephant”. This tells how six blind men of Indostan go to see an elephant and each try to work out what it is from touching it. One blind man touches the tusk, another the trunk, another the tail, and so on. Of course, not being able to see the whole elephant, they come to wildly different conclusions.
Tip: Try to keep the big picture in front of you while looking at details. It will help to put everything in its proper place and context.

7. Think For Yourself. Taking time out to think is still frowned on in many organizations that prize activity over creativity. People who work in creativity-constrained organizations are likely to think the way they are supposed to think, or as others think, or as has always been the way to think. It’s like the blinkered thinking that Hans Christian Anderson describes in his story of “The Emperor’s New Clothes”. Everyone in the land refuses to see that the emperor is naked and has been duped into believing he is wearing a splendid costume for his coronation. Only a young boy who has been ill and not party to the cultural brainwashing can see the truth and cries out: “Look, everyone, the Emperor is wearing no clothes!”
Tip: Don’t let others tell you how to think. When others ask your opinion, tell it to them straight.

Once you make these 7 techniques part of your habitual thinking patterns, you will amaze yourself with how easy it is to come up with fresh, innovative and creative solutions to all of life’s problems.

Have you tried creative loafing? It is a good excuse to relax, and also a great way to come up with new ideas and solutions to problems. How does one creatively loaf? Just relax, open your mind, and use one of the many idea-generating techniques.

A Creative Loafing Technique

My favorite technique is one that is best for generating new ideas rather than solving specific problems. It can be used in any area of life. It is simply the imagining of new applications for existing ideas.

Once, while laying on the couch, I saw an advertisement for a company that uses a dog to find mold in your house. You may know that dogs can be trained to sniff out almost anything. There was even a news story a year or two ago about a dog that could detect if you had cancer.

What was my first thought? “I wonder what else dogs could find by smell?” The first idea that came to mind was to use dogs to find other pets. They find lost people so well, so why not have a service to find lost pets? just one sniff of the cats favorite rug, and the dog is on the trail.

A Creative Loafing Example

You can certainly use your relaxing times to just randomly ponder things, but why not put creative loafing together with a good idea-generating technique. Then you can lay under a tree and have an endless stream of creative new ideas. For this “new-application technique,” just start with the essence of the idea, and look for new ways to use it.

For example, you might lay there and think about the pneumatic tubes that deliver your money and papers at a bank’s drive-through. The essence is a cartridge that delivers things through a tube using air pressure. I imagine the same thing would work for human transport. Could you ride “the tube” to the next city, or maybe make this into an amusement park ride?

Look other aspects of an idea too. For example, these tubes allow several customers to be waited on at once. Where else do they need this? A fast food drive through comes to mind. Perhaps pneumatic tubes would spill drinks, but the idea of multiple car lanes can be used. Several drive-through windows, radiating out like spokes, at different angles, would allow three different lines of cars.

If you want to practice using this technique, just lay back and…

– Imagine three new uses for pedal-power.

– Imagine two new uses for magnets.

– Think of a new application for Darwin’s theory of natural selection, outside of biology.

Can you see how easy it is to come up with new ideas? Why not learn a few more techniques? Then apply them to personal problems. Finally, to make the best use of your creative loafing time, keep a notebook or tape recorder ready.

Here in England September represents the end of Summer and the beginning of Autumn as well as the start of the new school year and the start of many new initiatives in business, life and lots more besides.

When anyone is looking to make any kind of change in their life, often the approach they take needs to become attractive or appealing in order for them to maintain it and often it may not remain attractive or appealing for as long as we like. I get lots of people that tell me that they find it difficult to maintain enthusiasm or keep on investing the required levels of energy in order to make a real success of a project or a goal.

So, for that reason, I want to talk about enhancing creativity today. When you become more creative, you can begin to make more out of your every day experiences and perceptions of what it is that you are doing, you can make life more colourful and have more fun and joy when you are more creative.

So what actually is Creativity?

Good question. We can all be creative; creativity is about making new connections – and that is literally physiologically true within our neurology. Creativity is the mind’s growing edge. It often involves a lot of discovery. By creating new connections you build your brain power and develop mental and interpersonal flexibility which can begin to heighten your ability to do a huge array of things with more and more ease.

Imagine this; every time you link two things together, you create a third entity. That new connection can itself then connect with other ideas, additional possibilities. Imagine the impact this can have throughout a system like your brain!

Neil Armstrong first stepped onto the moon in 1965. That event changed our beliefs and thoughts about the universe. It also altered thoughts and beliefs about human inventiveness and skill: this event helped us to recognise that if we want something enough, we can find ways to do something that we may have believed to be impossible before. I reckon this gave may people some powerful and liberating thoughts and beliefs about human capability. I heard on the radio recently that there are also plans to land on Mars now! I always fancied being an astronaut.

Being creative on an individual level has the same potential: when you connect things together, you go beyond both of them; and you have the possibility of forming new beliefs about yourself and your potential. I remember when I was first learning about NLP, hypnosis and my other beloved subjects, I was so excited, I would read so much material that I felt like my brain was literally growing and stretching. That’s not too scary is it?

I love working with children. They have such a vivid imagination, I can remember when I used to play football for hours and days on end as a youngster, I was not just imagining scoring in the World Cup final, I really was actually

there at Wembley Stadium scoring that goal, I am telling you I was there! Children are amazingly creative, each of us has been a child (some still are!). Children show their creativity in the way they discover their environment and make their own meanings of it. Many children create new worlds while playing with toys, they don’t need elaborate or sophisticated toys, equipment or props, the meaning comes from within them; the meaning comes from out of themselves.

You need to give yourself permission and time (and energy) to make new connections and links which is what creativity is all about. It is about the process rather than the outcome or the final product. You can be creative at home or at work, when changing habits, updating behaviours, resolving issues, or just making life happier in any way you can. You can be creative with words, ideas, thoughts, materials, food and the kind of fun you have. You can be creative with your surroundings or with your internal world.

In addition to this, creativity creates something new. That’s right, even if every ingredient is already known to you or is familiar. An insight for example, is creative because the new conclusion is gleaned from information you already had; it is the new perspective that makes the difference.

Above all, being creative returns us to that state where we are scoring goals in World Cup finals. It is about being absorbed and enjoying doing what you are doing, paying attention to detail, having a grand vision, being excited and playful, wondering what would happen if…