Make this year worth remembering!

Knowing what you want makes it easier to get it. Pursue your passion and dream big time for this stirs your blood and makes you feel alive.

“The tragedy of life doesn’t lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach for.

It isn’t a calamity to die with dreams unfilled, but it is a calamity not to dream.

It is not a disgrace to not reach the stars, but it is a disgrace to have no stars to reach for.

Not failure, but low aim, is a sin.”

Dr. Benjamin Elijah Mays

This is your decade, make it rock. Here´s some practical instructions and a printable worksheet to get it started.

 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, breathe 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 or draw 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).

 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 spark ideas for setting your goals I will provide you with some helping questions for each area of life.

Relax, take your time.

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?

 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 do you want to have them? 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 friends and to devote your time for being with them? What do you need to change or do this year to create these circumstances?

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 what kind of actions do you need to take?

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?

 
Some websites for finding inspiration to make your needs-lists: Reaper List :  Barefoot List : 43things.com

 6. Make sure that your goals are:
1) Specific – good goal clearly describes what needs to happen, what is the expected outcome. 
2) Measurable – good goal can be objectively evaluated – was it or was it not achieved. 
3) Time bound – good goal has specific dates as deadlines (“in 1 year”  is bad, “achieved by 14th of April 2011” is better).
4) Realistic, yet exciting – good goal is something you believe that you are able to do. Better goal is something that also stretches you by taking you out from your comfort zone.

Ask yourself:

  • Why is this goal important for me?
  • What am I willing to do to achieve that goal?
  • Who could 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 you 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.

Simplicity is awesome – that´s why I prepared a printable worksheet for you:

download_balanced_goals_worksheet
Are you a creative person who wants to customize the worksheet? Download the worksheet as MS Word document. I personally love mindmapping technique for systematizing my goals – you can test out the Free Mind mindmapping software. Another option that I also love is writing my ideas down on big flip-chart papers. Find the one that suits you the best and enjoy the process.

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

Cheers!

Harald

How to find your passionate purpose?

One of the biggest question in life: what is my purpose in life? What am I passionate about? Here´s a simple framework that will help you to bring clarity in those questions:

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

How to create success?

How to find motivation and self-belief to achieve outstanding results?

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 circle of success

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.

The most inspiring book – which one?


During my inspiration workshops people often note that the most inspiring book they have read is Antoine de Saint Exupery´s Little Prince. It´s a deep story made simple. It encourages us to challenge our assumptions and bring more creativity into our lives.

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.

Online course for young leaders – Creating Inspiration

Online personal development course with motivating videos and practical tips  for bringing more inspiration into your life.

 

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 practical lessons which you can explore whenever you feel.

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.

creating_inspiration_course_for_young_leadersWhich 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

About 1000 people have already found this course useful (last update: 16.05.2011) 

The most effective creativity techniques for getting fresh ideas

Creativity is about turning imagination into value. Ignite your imagination and enrich your creative thinking toolbox by applying these simple and effective creativity techniques.

reversed_brainstorming_creativity_techiqueReverse 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:

 “How to create trainings that are really boring?” – reversed problem How to create exciting trainings?” –  ideas for initial problem
Lets make people stand still, silent and with their hands tied together. Let people move around in the room freely, get them to communicate with each-other lively and let them do stuff with their hands (moulding, writing, drawing…).
Lets show them irrelevant slides filled with text on law paragraphs. Lets turn off the projector, focus only on the most relevant content and use flip-chart to make cool drawings to help people to memorize the content with symbols only.

 

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_creativity_techiqueSuperheroes 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_creativity_techiqueForced 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?”

journey_creativity_techiqueThe 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.