You can download a worksheet for writing down the things you´re good at, things you love and what the world needs. By combining these elements you will be able to develop the understanding of what your purpose is.

It’s never too late to be who you might have been.

George Eliot

 ”If you don´t design your own life plan, the chances are you´ll fall into someone else´s plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.”
Jim Rohn, entrepreneurship philosopher

1. Find yourself a peaceful and calming place to be with yourself.
Grab some paper and pencils, switch off your phone. Put your favorite music on and take in a comfortable position.

2. Visualize your past events.
Close your eyes, breadth deeply and let your imagination flow. Imagine all the great moments you have experienced. Live them again in your minds eye. Make those great moments brighter, bigger and bring them closer to yourself.

3. Note down the best moments.
Write down the keywords that describe the best moments, events, activities and quotes from the past years. All the good stuff your are proud of and what made those years really great.

4. Select the important areas in your life.
These areas can be for example: personal development, relationships, education, career, material needs, health and vacation (feel free to add or replace some of these areas of life if you feel that it would enable you to create better balance in your life).

5. Think of your big goals and think of your needs for this year.
Print out the worksheet (the link is in the end of this article), mark your big goals for each area and your goals for the upcoming year. The yearly goals help you achieve the big goals. Visualize yourself achieving those goals very brightly and feel how it feels when you have achieved them. To help you setting you goals and making them come true I will simply ask some helping questions for each area of life.

Personal development – What do you want to be as a person? What do you want to be remembered by? What is your talent? What kind of skills and abilities would you want to develop further? Do you want to be more spiritual? What would you consider as your ideal daily regime – how early do you want to wake up, what kind of habits do you need to get rid off and what kind of new habits you need to develop?

Relationships – What is your ideal partner (someone to grow old with)? How many kids you want to have and when is the appropriate time for them to be given birth? What can you do to make your relationship truly enjoyable? What kind of friends do you want to have around you? What do you prefer to do with them? Are you satisfied with the depth of your current relationships? Do you want to have more more friends and to devote your time for being with them? What do you need to change or do this year to make it so?

Education – Do you need to get a degree or extensive training in some field? Should you go to study in a university, take part in some specific courses or trainings? How are you going to freshen up your knowledge in your key areas?

Career – Imagine your dream job (or business). What kind of positive impact does your work have to pose on the society? Do you need to take your focus on some specific fields or perhaps even to switch your current job to do that?

Material needs – How much do you need to earn each month to live your life with the quality you deserve? What kind of devices, services or facilities do you need to achieve that quality of life? How to make your assets produce those financial means.

Health – Perhaps you want to play football with your grand children when you turn 70? Do you need to change your habits for eating, thinking, resting and physical exercise to make it possible? If yes, then in what specifically you need to do?

Vacation – How do you want to spend (invest) your free time? What kind of hobbies you want to take up? Where do you want to travel and what to experience?

6. Make sure that your goals are:
1) Specific – goal has to clearly describe what has to happen, what is the expected outcome. 
2) Measurable - you have to be able to objectively evaluate if your goal has been achieved. 
3) Time bound - set specific dates as deadlines for your goals (“in 1 year”  is bad, “achieved by 14th of April 2010″ is better).
4) Realistic, yet exciting – you need to believe that you can achieve those goals, but it is also good to set them high enough that you would need to get out from your comfort zone and grow.

Ask yourself:

• Why is this goal important for me?
• What am I willing to do to achieve that goal?
• Who is willing to help me to achieve that goal?
• What happens if I do not achieve that goal?
• What do I need to change in myself to achieve that goal?

The more action you take towards achieving your goals, the more likely they are achieved. Achievement comes from taking action.

Some questions to stimulate your ideation:

• If your only had one year to live, what would you do?
• If you won a lottery, how would you invest the money?
• What was it that you wanted to do when you were a child?
• What kind of stories do you want to tell to your grand children about your life?

7. Once you have finished goal-setting, then thank yourself and take action.
Give yourself recognition – praise yourself by doing something you really enjoy (eat some chocolate, listen to some good music, dance, call a friend). Do some specific step (even if it is a small one)  immediately towards your goals.

“What this power is I cannot say; all I know is that it exists and it becomes available only when a man is in that state of mind in which he knows exactly what he wants and is fully determined not to quit until he finds it. ”
Alexander Graham Bell - scientist, inventor, teacher.

I wish you great inspiration and moments of flow for the fresh year. Enjoy making your dreams come true!

Cheers!

Harald

I got some inspiration from Anthony Robbins´ foundation of success and decided to enrich this model with my own tips and ideas on how to manifest more success in your life. This is how the 4 step success model looks like:

The concept is simple:

Your beliefs determine your understanding of your potential. This potential determines whether you dare to take action. By taking action you get resultsand by interpreting these results you form your beliefs. The circle of success where each link plays vital role in creating success of failure. Which one would you choose?

If you prefer success, then take a look on these ideas I generated for making sure that each link would empower your success.

How to tap your hidden potential?

Your potential is your understanding of what you are capable of doing.

• Set your focus - make clear what is most important for you now? Which activities would have the strongest impact on your future?
• Make a list of your resources – write down all the opportunities and resources you could use.
• Make a list of previous successes - write down all the things you have been successful in.
• Amplify your special skills – use the talents that you have been recognized for.
• Find out what your friends think about you – ask people you trust to give their opinion on what you seem to be really good at.
• Test yourself- if you are having difficulties using the previous tips, try out different personality tests to find out what your strengths and special talents are.

How to take your ideas into action?

Ideas without implementation are worthless.

• Force yourself - create an irreversible need to take action. Take yourself into a state where you just have to do it and succeed.
• Set a deadline – define a specific date by which you will have it done.
• Be an experimenter – don´t worry about failure, but test, experiment.
• Give promises you have to fulfill – tell others how you are going to do it. After promising you just have to do it, otherwise you will be embarrassed if you are asked “so, did you do it?”.
• Eliminate unimportant - get rid of things and activities that do not add value to you. What could you eliminate now?
• Slice your goal into smaller tasks – make an action plan of achievable tasks that gradually reach your final goal.
• Grab some inspiration from your role-models – look how your role-models have done great things and decide that you will perform at the same level.
• Take action immediately – never leave a place of goal-setting without taking action to IMMEDIATELY do something to move a step closer to reaching the goal.

Before diving into tips on how to get better results, check out this inspiring video with Michael Jordan:

How to achieve really good results?

Result is what you want to achieve. Then again you define what it is that you have achieved.

• Clarify your measurement criteria – how do you know that you have achieved your goal? How do you measure it?
• Set higher goals - higher goals make you do more and this way you will achieve a greater result, than you would have achieved with modest goals.
•  Decide to become the superstar in your niche field – decide to become really good in your specific domain and devote yourself to do it.
• There is no failure, there is only feedback – whatever happens, this is what happened and you received feedback about it. Learn from it and move on.
• Reject rejections – don´t let fools take you down.
• See positive in everything- see what opportunities the result offers, whatever it is. You interpret your results.

How to form positive, empowering beliefs?

Your  beliefs determine how you see the world. They form the lens through which you see the world.

• Enjoy recognition – sincerely thank everyone who have appreciated your achievements. Let the good feeling go through you and decide: “Yes, I´m really good!”
• Create positive affirmations – repeat positive affirmations about yourself out loud, make sure to add the emotion to each time you say the affirmation.
• Write you beliefs manifest – write down all the things you believe in. Define, which are your empowering and which are your dis-empowering beliefs. Brake the dis-empowering and amplify the empowering beliefs.
• Use hypnosis – let experts help you reprogram your beliefs (only use this if you have found a trustworthy therapist and you are unable to find any other option that works).

Apply these principles now and let your circle of success expand! Get yourself an inspiring coach to accelerate your success.

If you haven´t read it or you simply want to refresh your memory, then you can also read the “Little Prince” online.

Share your opinion: which book has inspired you the most?

I´ll start with some of the books and lessons that have had a great positive impact of my life:

The most important resource is not time, it is energy.
Jim Loehr, Tony Schwartz: “The Power of Full Engagement”

Automate your work and live your life the way you really want to.
Timothy Ferriss: “4 Hour Workweek”

Focus your energy on what you want in your life. And that´s what you get in your life. The law of attraction.
Rhonda Byrne: “The Secret”

It´s not about what happened, it´s not about what will happen. It´s about what you are experiencing now. Being in the now - wow.
Eckhart Tolle: “The Power of Now”

Achieve the state of being totally committed to the work at hand. Let it flow.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: “Flow – The Psychology of Optimal Experience”

Back to you: peek at your bookshelf and share the name of your favorite book.

If you´re looking for inspiration, then you will find the new online course “Creating Inspiration” very useful for getting practical tips, tactics to:

• Build your self-confidence, to be completely inspired and not to worry about the small things.
• Be inspired even with a tight schedule.
• Activate yourself and fulfill your goals with inspired passion.
• Discover more inspiring moments, people and opportunities around you.
• Be the inspiration when communicating with people.

The online course consists of 5 lessons – link to each lesson will be sent to your e-mail (1 lesson per week) and you can choose your most comfortable time and place to go through those lessons.

Relevant

50 enterprising young persons gave their input noting what prevents them from being inspired. This course was developed with their needs in mind, systematizing the obstacles and turning them into tactics to overcome them.

Inspiring

this course is very useful for all the young leaders who need encouraging and inspiring input to recharge themselves to create a positive impact on the world.

Motivating

The course consists of 5 lessons – each packed with encouraging videos and clear, effective exercises that can bring you life-changing results as you apply them.

Are you a young leader? Then this course is free for you – take it as  a present from me.

Which topics are covered?

Click on the mindmap image to find out which hot topics and questions are covered during the course.

Why is it for free?

I´m a passionate learner and I love being in a constant state of development, but due to my busy training schedule I might not be able to reach all the people who really need this kind of inspiration through trainings. That´s why I want to share a piece of myself through this online course to all the enterprising young people, who want to create the positive impact on the world.

Get your free Creating Inspiration online course

Are you ready to ignite your personal development? Insert your first name and e-mail address and immediately receive the link for the first course on your e-mail.

Reverse brainstorming – how not to solve the problem

Tired of doing routine brainstorms on “how to get more clients” or ”how to get more sales” etc? Turn it around and brainstorm on how to make the problem even worse and after that turn the ideas around again – stating them in positive.

1. Define your problem.
2. Reverse your problem.
3. Brainstorm ideas for the reversed problem – be bold and provocative. Get as many ideas as possible.
4. Reverse those problems, turning them into ideas for your initial problem.
5. Take massive action and get results.

Example:

Interesting side-effects: by stating ways how not to solve the problem you often develop a deeper understanding of things you are actually doing wrong at the moment. Having them written down and finding ways to turn it around makes you more motivated for positive change.

Superheroes technique – borrowed brains

Don´t just use all the brains you have – also use all the brains you can borrow. Map your superheroes – people you admire – and get ready to rock´n roll!

1. Define your problem.
2. Brainstorm 10-50 superheroes – people who are better than you in some specific domain. Take a note on each superhero´s unique skill.
3. Ask yourself “How would x solve this problem?” or “What can I learn from x to solve this problem?” or “What has x done that could also work for me?” etc. Take notes on ideas that come to your mind.
4. Select the most interesting ideas and find ways in which you can adopt them to your current situation to solve this problem.
5. Take massive action and get results.

This technique is very similar to benchmarking, where the leading “superheros” can be your competitors. Turn your rivals into your superheros – use their brains and ideas to ignite your progress. Shift this paradigm and get results.

Forced connections – the art of combining

There is nothing totally new in this world. The difference between innovators and non-innovators is simply the fact that innovators make better connections that are of value.

1. Define your problem.
2. Brainstorm different keywords that come to your head (relevant and irrelevant to the topic) – sometimes the more irrelevant they seem, the better it is. You can write those keywords down to Post-it notes and attach them to the wall.
3. Start combining those words with each other and making up new connections asking yourself “what kind of ideas does this connection give me to solve my problem?”. Make wild connections by playing with the words and ideas.
4. Select the best ideas.
5. Take massive action and get results.

Did you know that:

• All the modern English literature is a pattern of 26 letters.
• All the paintings that have ever been done are made of 3 fundamental colors – blue, red, yellow.
• All the music that has ever been written consists of patterns made out of 12 notes.
• All the information you see on your computer screen is a pattern of binary code (“1″ or “0″).

Impressive? I want you to redefine the amount of resources to come out with something totally new. You just have to become a great connector of existing elements. “What if I combined these things?”

The journey – adventure for ideas

Switch your thinking by switching your environment. Go out to get some fresh stimuli.

1. Define your problem.
2. Explain the problem to your team-mates and get out from your office (go to the library for example). Ask each member to investigate around to find ideas that could solve the problem and meet in one hour. They can take things with them or make notes and photos for example.
3. Meet, take notes and share the ideas that you developed during your journey.
4. Select the best ones adapt them to your current situation.
5. Take massive action and get results.

Step out from your box, read materials you normally don´t read, talk to people you normally don´t speak. Get fresh ideas by getting fresh input.

Experiment by using elements from different creativity techniques, create combinations that suit you the best and create the ritual that helps you most effectively develop fresh ideas.

Are you using some cool creativity technique already? Let people know what it is and how it works by adding it as a comment. Let the world know what works, because there are hundreds of poeple longing for fresh ideas.

Here´s some of the essential public speaking tips that helped me at the JCI World Public Speaking Championship in Budapest and will help you in situations where you need to prepare a great speech in short notice and own the stage by speaking with passion.

Apply them now and reap the benefits of becoming an outstanding speaker.

1. Prepare your speech - get the point

• Define your audience – who they are, what the are interested in, what would inspire them?
• Define your topic and get some initial ideas with brainstorming or other creativity techniques.
• Define your outcome – what do you want to achieve through your speech? What kind of action do the listeners need to take?
• Ask yourself “Am I passionate about this subject?”. If the answer is no, then skip this performance or create your passion for it, otherwise you´re just wasting other people´s time. 
• Develop your initial ideas to concepts, find interesting quotes, alliterations and personal stories to spice up your content into a holistic experience. 

Remember: There is one radio-station that everyone wants to hear – it´s called WIIFM – What´s In It For Me? Tune your message to that frequency and inspire your audience.

2. Prepare your presentation – make it stick

•  Take your speech and make it 2 times shorter by throwing out everything that does not support your expected outcome. Use better words and expressions to pass your message to the audience. Clarify what are the specific things you want the audience to remember after the speech.
• Create a visual aid – a mindmap or illustrated story board with important keywords and visuals to help you remember. This will give you a big picture for your mind and help you remember the key things much more effectively than any regular script that is dull.
• Use your body to clarify your message – you can practise making the speech with muted voice, using only your body, hands, facial expressions and other aids to convey the message.
• Create an exciting beginning (a story for example) to attract attention and an effective ending (call to action) to be remembered by.
• If you intend to use PowerPoint, then get acquainted with this: Death by PowerPoint slideshow and Presentation Zen blog for effective visual presentations.

Remember: come prepared or learn to improvise like an actor. Better yet, do both, because over-preparing will drain the passion and spontaneity out from your speech. Focus on your message, not the script.

 3. Tuning in – get into the right state

•  If possible, then check out the room, stage and facilities in advance. Visualize yourself successfully performing in rich detail and with strong positive emotion. This will enhance your self-confidence.
• Ground your body to relax – visit the toilet and slide your hands over your face (this is something that actors do before going to stage, it releases their tension).
• Release your tensions and get enough oxygen – go outside and stretch yourself to get the life moving inside of you. Warm up your voice by speaking to someone in a passionate manner. You can also use a vine-bottle cork, stick it between your teeth and try to speak very clearly for a minute. After removing the cork you really do sound more clear.
• Do not eat nuts or chocolate just before the speech, because it will affect your throat. Instead drink optimal amount of water to keep the throat clear.
• Focus on positive aspects and success – if possible have some laugh in a fun conversation with a friend before the speech. The endorphine will give you a positive attitude. Whenever you see yourself concentrating on your fears, take your focus on breathing.

Get into the state of your ideal performer. Breathe, stand and develop the look of your ideal performer. Become the passionate performer.

4. Own the stage – keep the energy

• When going on a stage do some powertalk in your mind, saying for example “every day and every way I get better HEI!”.
• Take your position on stage, relax your shoulders, breathe deeply in and out, achieve the contact with the audience and THEN start your speech.
• Keep your eyecontact with the audience (don´t get lost in your materials or other aids), involve people by using questions and use pauses after saying the important stuff.

 When getting on the stage, ask yourself “what for did I come here?”. Then do as the answer tells you to.

So what happened on the stage? Check out the secret spy video footage:

Inspiring speech “Global Impact Through Local Action” from Harald Lepisk on Vimeo.

This is the beginning. How far are you actually willing to go? If you wish to become a true master in public speaking, then get coaching and training. You can also invite me to bring power, passion and energy into your speech. Are you ready for that?

Tony Buzan on how to improve your creative thinking

Am I creative? How the brain works? How to think out of the box?

Edward De Bono on creative thinking

Is every novel idea creative? Provides a good framework for understanding creativity.

Tim Brown: The powerful link between creativity and play

Good involving lecture on creativity with many practical examples. Make sure you do all the excercises he asks you to  

Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?

Entertaining and profoundly moving speech on creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity.

What happens if we ignore creativity?

How can you encourage a child? Use your imagination.

Fostering your children´s creativity

Some tips on how to nurture your child´s creativity.

Why being creative pays off?

Facts of life – time is always right for creativity.

Have you seen any other good videos on creativity that are publicly available? Let everyone know by adding their links as comments.

We possess a powerful tool – the internet connection. All the secrets, knowledge and perhaps even the truth can be found in there. But the main question is:”What do you type in after starting your web-browser?”.

I´ll make it easier for you – all the best stuff about creativity can be found using these links on creativity.

Use online tools and creativity techniques to ignite your thinking

www.mycoted.com/Category:Creativity_Techniques - large database of creativity techniques.
www.creax.com – big database of creativity links.
www.virtualsalt.com/crebook2.htm - creative thinking techniques and about creativity.
www.infinn.com/innovationhouse.html - tools for creative thinking.
www.creatingminds.org/ - creativity tools, techniques and methods.
www.thinksmart.com/ - creativity tests and entrepreneurial creativity.
www.kennieting.com/mousebrains/ - very cool tool for developing advertisements.
www.gocreate.com/tools/ - loads of creativity tools.
www.thinkature.com/ - thinking visually online.
www.mindmeister.com – team mindmapping online.
100 Excellent Online Tools to Feed Your Creativity

Get inspired by great thinkers

www.ted.com – Ideas worth spreading.
www.poptech.org - leaders of thought on making the world a better place.
www.dailyroutines.typepad.com/daily_routines/ - how artists, writers and other creative people organize their daily activities.
sethgodin.typepad.com/ - Seth Godin´s marketing blog.
www.einsteinpicasso.com/7.html - Big link database on creativity and innovation compiled by Peter Fisk.
www.wisdomquotes.com/cat_creativity.html - quotes on creativity.

Use connections and search-engines

www.soople.com - searching from different mediums.
www.slideshare.net – PowerPoint slides online.
www.visualthesaurus.com - displays connections between words.
www.kartoo.com – visual search engine.
www.pdf-search-engine.com – find pdf documents.

Get inspired by pictures

www.panimages.org – search engine that is independent from search-engines.
www.worth1000.com – Pictures with a little Photoshop touch
www.adsoftheworld.com – good ads.
www.quasimondo.com/tagnautica.php – animated Flickr photo search.
www.creativity-online.com/ - digital creativity, advertisement and design.
FFFFound image bookmarking – browse through bookmarked pictures.

Investigate what is happening at idea contests and idea-banks

www.moreinspiration.com – interesting innovations for inspiring you.
www.inewidea.com – inventions and innovative products.
www.designboom.com – industrial design competitions.
www.globalideasbank.org – global ideas bank.
www.halfbakery.com – ideas to be developed further.
www.dellideastorm.com – Dell getting ideas for product development.
www.inventnow.org – for young inventors.
www.fastcompany.com/100 - 100 most creative people in business.

Peek in the blogs

www.blogsearch.google.com - search from blogs.
www.technorati.com – blog network.

Use checklists

www.7ideas.be/7-letters-van-scamper.html – 700 idea stimulators for product development.

Keep your eye on trends

www.trendwatching.com - trends in world.
www.trendhunter.com – differentiating trends.

Give the right fuel for your brain

20 Super Brain Foods

Any good links missing? Let us know by adding them as comments.

Please check back on 10th of July 2009 to get some really interesting materials on Creativity World Tour.

Are you a creativity trainer? – join the team!
Are you interested in having a creativity training in your country? – let me know.

You´ll get all the answers from here:
e-mail: harald [ät] trainings.ee
Skype: lepisk

Stay inspired!