Personal Development Passion

Has it ever happened with you?  You are in the toilet, or you are driving a car, or climbing or descending a staircase, bathing, or reading a book, or doing any routine thing. Suddenly a great creative idea which has the potential to greatly improve your life flashes in your mind. You sense from within that the creative idea which has just flashed in your mind is a very powerful one, and you are quite sure that if implemented, that creative idea has a great potential to improve your life or work area in a positive way. But afterwards you just forget the creative idea and never implement the creative idea which flashed in your mind.

It has happened with me. Unfortunately those creative ideas were not put to use and and were allowed to dissipate. The life simply missed an improvement opportunity.

I pondered over the reasons why, in spite of generation of these creative ideas having a great potential to improve my life in a positive way, were never put to use.

The reason appears to be that the creative idea having a great potential to improve my life was never caught by me in the first place. The creative idea which flashed in my mind was never recorded. Just like when you fail to photograph a great event when the event happens. Only if you take a snapshot of the event, you are able to look at the picture again and again and enjoy it, or do something about it.

The same happens in the case of creative ideas too. Before writing this post, during the course of the day, I had many many interesting and useful topic ideas flashing across my mind, which I feel I should share with the readers through this blog. But then, I suddenly realised that the ideas will simply be gone if I do not record them somewhere , or catch hold of these creative ideas in some way, in some form or the other. So I wrote down the creative ideas on a piece of paper.

Let us not underestimate the importance of creative ideas which flash in our minds. Each creative idea generated in our minds, I believe, is a priceless gift of God. God has so designed this creative faculty in our brain that by taking opportunity to implement these creative flashes in our mind, we can elevate our lives.

Follow these simple steps for recording your creative idea:

1 Make a pocket size note-book and name it Creative Ideas Book. Always carry the Creative Ideas Book and a pen with you whereever you go. Note down any idea which you think is important for you in the Creative Ideas Book. Do not be bothered about the rightness or wrongness of the idea at this stage.

2. If possible, carry a pocket voice recorder (it can be a microcassette recorder or a mp3 player with recording feature) with you whereever you go. Record any creative idea flashed across you mind in it. Later note down the ideas on a paper. Agian, do not be bothered about the rightness or wrongness of the idea at this stage.

3. Make a list of all your creative ideas and think over them.

4. Take steps to work on the ideas which you find are useful to you. Eliminate the ideas which you think are not useful for you.

The famous author, Napoleon Hill, in his timeless classic “Think and Grow Rich” mentions the late Dr Elmer R. Gates of Chevy Chase, Maryland who created more than 200 useful patents through the process of cultivating and using creative faculty. He records as under:

“Dr Gates had a personal communication room which was soundproof and so arranged that all the lights could be shut out. There was a small table on which used to keep a pad of writing paper. When Dr Gates desired to draw upon the forces available to him through his creative imagination, he would go into this room, seat himself at the table, shut off the lights, and concentrate upon the known factors of the invention on which he was working, remaining in that position until ideas began to flash into his mind in connection with the unknown factors of the invention. On one occasion, the ideas came through so fast that he was forced to write for almost 3 hours. When the Scots stopped flowing, and he examine his note, he found they contained a minute description of principles which had not a bad level among the known date of the scientific world. The answer to this problem was intelligently presented in those notes. Dr Gates earned his living by “sitting for ideas” for individuals and corporations. Some of the largest corporations in America paid him substantial fees, by the hour of four “sitting for ideas”.”

Such is the power of creative ideas. The greatest asset which we possess, is not the house we live in, is not the car we drive, or the latest electronic gadget that we own. Our greatest gift is our own brain, and the creative ideas generated by it are real diamonds and pearls which we must catch hold of and put to use.

While it is true that your success largely depends upon how you think (your inner self), rather than your circumstances, yet the importance of the external environment you find yourself in, cannot be underestimated. For achievement of success, the environment you are in everyday has a great deal to contribute. In order to keep yourself constantly motivated and inspired to succeed in your chosen endeavor you need to be in what I call as "success environment".

Consider this:

what makes you feel sexy and romantic in the privacy of your bedroom;
what makes you feel peaceful when you visit a beautiful location in nature;
what makes you feel sacred when you visit a church or a temple or a mosque, or when you hear the sound of mantras that means divine chants;
what makes you feel excited when you attend a dance party;
what makes you feel romantic when you are with your date or spouse at a candlelight dinner;
what makes you feel meditative when you just sit down and internalize your awareness in a meditation room;
what makes you feel dreadful when admitted in hospital;
what makes you feel sad and introverted when attending a funeral.

Examples abound. My point is: your external environment largely contributes in helping you maintain a positive attitude for success. It keeps you constantly motivated to succeed. How you feel depends greatly upon the environment you are in. Even for achieving a peaceful and meditative state of mind, experts recommend that you choose a peaceful location. The reason is obvious. The external environment definitely contributes greatly in your achievement of deep meditative state.

Same is true of Success. Your achievement of success depends upon the environment you are mostly in. The people you are with daily; the material you read; the words you hear; the words you speak, all contribute in keeping you success oriented. Would it not, then, make complete sense that you always keep yourself in success environment.

How can you do so? The answer is simple. You can ensure to always keep yourself in success environment by creating your own success environment. Lets see how. The factors which go to make your environment are:

What you Read / See

What you Hear

What you Speak

Who you spend most of your time with

What you Read

For our purposes Reading and Seeing are same. After all the words you read are nothing but symbols. Words create pictures in your mind. They are creators of thought. It is essential that you be selective in choosing the material you read if you ever aim to succeed.

Read life-changing Books: You must make it a point to read motivational, inspiring material everyday at least for 15 minutes. There is no dearth of good motivational, inspiring and deeply spiritual material.

Here are a few good books which have impacted my life for the better and which you might consider reading: "Think and Grow Rich" by Napolean Hill, "The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari" by Robin Sharma, "See You at the Top = Formerly Entitled Biscuits, Fleas, and Pump Handles (Motivational Series) " by Zig Ziglar, "The Greatest Salesman In The World" by Og Mandino, "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" by Stephen Covey. The list is big. These are only a few examples.

These are not just books but transformation tools. It has been my personal experience that reading these books did not result in just an act of reading. It was a process. A transformational process. The magical part of it is that while reading these books you feel yourself undergoing a transformation. Such is the power of these books. The investment you make in such priceless jewels is never wasted.

Create Motivational Quote Posters: Another way to effectively use reading is to read motivational, insightful quotes. They are amply available. You can nicely print them using your PC and paste them at various places, such as your bedroom, your work-desk, your office, in such a way that you happen to naturally look at them whenever you happen to pass by or sit to work. I have created and pasted such quotes at prominent places in my bedroom, in my office, in my car on dashboard.

Motivational Pictures: A picture is worth a thousand words. The impact of a picture is very great when it comes to motivating you. Cut motivational pictures from magazines. When I wanted to change my external image, I had cut pictures of sophisticated, confident looking executives from magazines and had them pasted all over. When I was doing weight training in my late teen I had cut and pasted pictures of bodybuilders all over. In addition to magazines, now you have a great source available for you: the internet.

What you Hear

Listen to motivational tapes daily. Now-a-days ipods and mp3 players are available in cheap. Make best use of them.

Listen to motivational tapes, CDs daily. Make best use of your commutation time while going to your office. I do this regularly. I listen to motivational tapes when I go to court and come back. I always have a set of "Dynamic Living Seminar" tapes by Skip Ross, ready with me in my car. Its a wonderful seminar running in 6 hours of listening.

Make your home, your car a university of learning and success. I have even purchased a mp3 player. I regularly listen to the downloaded audio podcasts from Steve Pavlina and Robin Sharma. They are wonderful audios and the best part of it is that they are free.

I have even created my own tapes by recording in my voice motivational material from inspirational books, for my own private use, of course. I listen to the tapes daily in my car while commuting. You can use this simple idea. Just one word of caution, Keep the tapes for your own personal use and not for commercial use.

What you Speak

Your speech is reflective of what goes on inside your mind. What you say originates much much before deep inside your mind in the form of thoughts. These thoughts then take the form of speech and come out of your mouth in the form of speech or your talk.

However, by carefully choosing your words to give proper shape to your thoughts you can control a great deal of negativity. Suppose if you feel something is a problem, then instead of using the word "problem" to describe it, use the word "challenge". The whole tenor of your "problem" instantly changes and you feel like approaching your so called problem in a daring fashion. Now your speech will regulate your thinking by diminishing the original negative thought which had arisen in your mind and by substituting it with the more positive and manageable one. So watch your words.

Who you are with most of the time

Doubtlessly the people with whom you spend time everyday have a greater role to play in either keeping you constantly inspired or de motivated.

There are certain people in your life who you cannot avoid, such as your own spouse, your children, your parents etc.

However you can definitely take a look and review the kind of people you are required to spend most of the time either in office, workplace etc. If possible avoid the company of unmotivated negative people who are always complaining, and who do not want to achieve anything in life.

Be with those who are if not motivated, then at least are not negative and will not discourage you.

So that’s what goes to create your success environment.