Chart Your Course

Image Courtesy of Puck 90

I am feeling very overwhelmed today.  I’ve got several huge projects I am trying to finish up at once.  My primary project today was trying to finish up the Rich Women Sisterhood site.  It wasn’t until I looked at the blog topics I was linking to that I realized that there was an underlying theme here.

In 5 Ways to Stay Motivated to Finish What You Started, Hani Al-Qasem said, “When they are in a state of overwhelm or frustration their motivation to keep working is hindered. Their enthusiasm to finish off what they had started is greatly reduced and may lead to stop working on the project altogether.”

Tonight I know exactly what he means. It might as well said, “When I am in a state of overwhelm or frustration my motivate to keep working is hindered.  My enthusiasm to finish what I started is greatly reduced, and I am so tempted to quit working on this project altogether.”

Luckily I had already done step 4 and 5 and went on a walk.  That really  helped.

Plus here are a few more articles that I felt inspired by today:

In 7 Steps to Enduring Change, the Basics of Beginning, Christiaan shares some tips on making a change in your life that will last.  His tips will help find out where things may have gone wrong in your goal achieving process and help you get back on track.

In 9 Keys to Overcoming Difficult Times shares Alvin Soon shares some tools you may find useful in managing your emotional state during difficult times.

Donald Latumahina very popular article shares 15 Tips to Stay Positive in Negative Situations.

And finally in the The Joy of Solving Problems Steve Pavlina talks about overcoming overwhelm, and about how to view life’s problems.

Enjoy!

P.S.  I spent last night shredding a bunch of papers I no longer needed.  To me it was symbolic of getting rid of what no longer suited me and I found it very therapeutic.

Oh yeah…

Do you have some tips you’d like to share?  Go ahead and share them below.  I’d love to hear them!

Image Courtsey of H. Koppdelaney's Photostream

All of us imagine all the time.  After all, it is our imagination that allows us to play out all the possible scenarios laid out before us and decide on a course of action.

“Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.”  ~ Gloria Steinman

Our imagination determines for the most part how we react to nearly every situation. Our imagination allows us to take our experiences, and all the things we learn and connect them together in new and meaningful ways.  And our imagination allows us to enjoy life more fully.

However, there is a problem…

Although imagination is something we do constantly very few of us have been taught how to effectively manage our imagination.

Imagination in school, was for the most part, limited.  Even in art classes you were probably were taught that elephants are not pink and that you had to draw houses “this way” if you wanted to do it the “right way.”

As children we were told stop daydreaming and get back on task.  But then, suddenly, when the clock hit the magical hour we were told to turn our imagination back on for our creative writing projects.

Throughout our school years we were taught plenty of facts, and then asked to recall those facts. And now we are asked to solve problems based on all the information we learned.

No wonder, as adults, many people rely primarily our synthetic imagination.

It allows us to take those pieces and put them together in a new way. It rearranges the existing thought patterns into new patterns.  It is through the power of synthetic imagination that new products are developed.

All of us have synthetic imagination, and it’s a good thing we do.  If we didn’t we be much like a computer that stores facts, and does nothing with them unless directed to.

The other type of imagine is creative imagination. Creative imagination refers to our ability to develop completely new and different ideas.  It’s the ability to take concepts and put them together to solve  problems and achieve  goals. This type of imagination often manifests itself in the form of hunches and inspiration. And it is creative imagination that is responsible for many of the great breakthroughs in medicine, science, technology, art, music, literature.

Both creative and synthetic imagination are important, and both types of imagination play a vital role in your life.

The most successful people feed their synthetic imagination  on a regular basis, and they deliberately train themselves to tap into their creative imagination.

• So what can you do to broaden your imagination?

• What can you do to increase the power of your imagination?

Stay tuned for tips, insight, and resources  on how to manage your imagination…