Generation Interim

“One of the strongest characteristics of genius is the power of lighting its own fire.” John W. Foster

If that’s the case we each have the ability to manifest the genius within. Motivation seems to have many of us playing red light-green light. We’re on, then off. Check out the following steps to keep the fire burning.

1- Be in tune to what lights your fire~ Dr Carol Dweck*, who received her PhD in psychology from Yale, and is currently on staff at Stanford University has studied motivation and offered the following, “… when you sift through the literature on creative genius, the researchers agree that motivation is perhaps the number one component in the realization of genius. Many of our most illustrious geniuses in every field were people who were considered ordinary as children, and then just caught fire around their topic and achieved amazing things that we know about todayfrom Darwin, to Coleridge, to Cézanne. All of these people were not necessarily extraordinary children.” What provides the emotional charge that makes it easy to take action? List the topics, ideals, information, music, activities, causes, and passions that get you wound up? This is part of who you are, different from others, that deserves to manifest and be shared.

2- Get your daily dose~ Fill yourself up with the stuff that keeps your flame lit. Don’t think about what you “should” do. Do what makes you feel great! Incorporate joy into your schedule daily. First, you will feel more energized, more complete, and in flow. Secondly, you stand apart from others. So if you hate building your business by cold calling, don’t do it. What do you enjoy? If you are uncomfortable networking, shifting your focus to helping others may make a big difference if that’s what you value. Filling your mind with exciting information, listening to uplifting music, or connecting with someone who inspires you may be just the daily habit to keep you whistling while you work.

3- Take responsibility to motivate yourself~ As motivational speaker Zig Ziglar would hear complaints about motivation wearing off he would sometimes respond saying, “People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing-that’s why we recommend it daily.” Too often we are looking for someone or something to provide motivation when it’s really up to us to keep that spark ignited.

What makes you jump out of bed in the morning? What inspires you into action daily so that the genius in you is manifested fully? Ponder that. Starting Now!

* The interview with Dr. Carol Dweck, PhD, can be read here.

Copyright 2006, Beth A. Tabak, All rights reserved.

Beth Tabak of http://www.StartingNowCoaching.com is committed to small business coaching & personal life coaching. She is also a speaker and columnist. Beth coaches big thinkers to move beyond limits, stand out in the crowd, and experience the vastness of their capabilities. Stop by to see all the gifts available to you and say “hello”.

Say “yes” to the sun! Say “yes” to warm days! Say yeas to spring and good mood! Yes! Yes! God, I’m so fed up of shivering and muffling myself up. It’s such a happiness, to wake up in the morning in a room, filled with sunshine! I do want to throw away all sorts of rubbish out of my house, wax everything and make sparkling under bright rays. I do want cleanness, newness, joy, smiles, love, good mood. So, let’s create spring mood for yourself and other people! Allow spring coming into your heart! I’ll share my ideas with you.

Well, firstly just think that cold weather is far away already, winter dejection – even farer, and smile.
Create a warm, friendly atmosphere at home.

Are your relatives or friends with you? Start a conversation about spring changes with them. Be all ears to their thoughts and offer yours.

Have your daughter or son returned from school? Postpone a question about school marks for half and hour, and start reading poems, tokens, anecdotes on spring, or any other, funny and merry, sunject after lunch.

Your half-year-old baby is whimpering and asking to your hands? Hug him sooner, whirl, kiss and say he’s wonderful. Laughter and delight in his eyes will present you unforgettable moments of harmony.

Are you just expecting a baby? Great! Feel a beginning of a new life in yourself, when everything around begins living again, when the whole nature is struggling desperately for the right to wake up sooner and surprise us with a mischief of colors.

May be, you are living through a black period of your life now, and you would be happy to smile again, bit problems and stress prevent you from doing this? Then try to light a candle (scented one is best of all), turn on pleasant music and look through your favorite photos. This is an approved soul medicine.

Ideas for home
Of course, careful cleaning is necessary for you to feel comfortable at home and enjoy a feeling of “full deep” work. If you have no time for it now (for example, you’ve come back from work recently), and your soul is asking for comfort and changes, you can:

- Dive into your wardrobe or clothes-press, shake everything up topsy-turvy there and put things accurately on shelves. As for me, an ideal look of clothes returns a feeling of moral satisfaction to me in a moment.

– Look at your favorite chandelier or dish carefully, and think: “Why are you so dusty, dear?”. Now arm with a duster and let’s get down to work! When everything starts sparkling, you’ll be able to be haughty from pride!

– Devote an hour for home plants: feed them, cut off dry leaves, bath under shower or sprinkle. A result – a smell of wet freshness in your apartment and a wonderful look of green nurslings. Moreover, children adore such work.

If you like artificial plants, “settle” a bright spring composition in a vase or a boring corner, brighten up your room, corridor or kitchen. It’s not so necessary to draw designer’s ideas from magazines. As for me, choosing of right color palette and style, which will correspond to your interior, inner state and, of course, budget, is much more interesting.

- Plan your actions for nearest weeks: what you should throw away, give to somebody, repair. While thinking, you’ll already imagine wonderful results of your activity.

And now – attention! If you, like me, have been lucky enough to be on good terms with neighbors, then why not to refine your piece of floor? For example, we bought photo wall-papers and attached them to the wall, opposite to elevator. A wonderful spring landscape. And people living above us caught up the idea. Three kids have been drawing flowers with paints on walls for the second evening.

For wonderful state of health

1. Cheer up yourself with a cool shower in the morning.

2. Do although a short exercising. If you cannot do intensive exercising (for example, if you’re pregnant), then you always can do this:
Stand with your back to the wall. Try to straighten your back. Now pull your arms apart and stretch yourself slowly and gratefully. I promise, you’ll like it!

3. Try to stay on fresh air more often. Sometimes it’s much easier to get rid of shadows under your eyes and gain fresh complexion in spring through walking, and not due to various creams.

Just for pleasure

1. Almost all women adore taking care of themselves. Now it’s quite time to renew yourself! What do you want or like most of all: watching a hairdresser’s doing magic with your hair, purring under a masseur’s hands, or admiring a fresh manicure? It’s you to choose!

2. Buy something new for yourself. Not necessarily expensive. Of course, a spring coat of a fashionable style or a cosmetics arsenal – are great. But what if you’re a young mother, and you just have no time and possibility to put on even favorite beautiful things, jumping through puddles with a baby carriage? Or you’re just expecting a baby and don’t want to buy excess cloth? Or may be you’ve got financial troubles and other plans? In this case, a bright beautiful kerchief, little cap, a couple of nice gloves or soft comfortable shoes – are for you!

3. Remember all your hobbies. May be, you’d be happy to find some time for them on the weekend or a couple of times after work?

4. You don’t like TV repertoire? Then, you you’ve got a shop near, take a kind comedy and shout with laughter. Watching family chronicles also always brings joy.
The way to spend weekend
Of course, here everything completely depends on your possibilities and life situation.

1. Do you have a possibility to get to cinema? Catch it and use for sure.

But: if you’re pregnant, don’t go to movies with loud effects, especially if you are on late terms. A baby may begin pushing you too intensively.

2. You have no possibility to go somewhere, however, you’ve got a green tract nearby? Then set off for walking on fresh air!

Arrange a holiday for yourself
Why waiting for someone’s birthday or official holiday? Arrange your own holiday, wake up your imagination from spring sleepiness!

For example, you can invite your friends and relatives to taste some new dish you will cook by yourself.

If you have no time for cooking at all – don’t worry! Just go to a shop and buy a pie. And then eat it up in the evening with your folks, or invite somebody.

Well, are you already inspired with the spring thirst? If so, then, probably, you’ll be able to offer your own receipts of good mood? Let’s share ideas and present joy to each other!

Yana Mikheeva is the creator of the WomansPassions site for women and about women at http://www.womanspassions.com, it is an on-line resource for women and about women. Here you can find articles on various subjects, such as: diets, receipts, health, cellulite, figure, aromatherapy, wholesome food, psychology of relationships, pregnancy, parenting, fashion and many others.
She also has a blog for women at http://www.womanspassions.com/blog.

The story is told of two boys who were walking through a field and found some corn seeds scattered across the ground. They each took one of the seeds home and planted it.

When the first boy didn’t see a tiny sprout after the second day, he dug up the seed to see if it had sprouted. Each day he dug up the seed and replanted it, but the corn would not grow. The seed had germinated; yet the boy had not allowed it to maintain contact with the soil, take root, and obtain nutrients. So, it died.

The second boy planted his seed and left it alone. He imagined a tall stalk of corn where he had planted the seed. He waited patiently as rains came and sunshine bathed the ground with warmth. In ten days, a small sprout had broken through the ground, its curled leaves reaching toward the sky.

Achieving any desire, whether large or small, begins with a seed sown in the mind. That seed is the vision of its fulfillment. It also requires the commitment to allow the vision to grow–the faith in God to do His part through storm, rain, and sunshine.

Commitment in daily life allows life’s storms to strengthen resolve. Resolve allows us to nurture a new dream, improve an existing dream, or even begin over if necessary. Faith allows acceptance of any circumstance as God’s blessing for ultimate growth.

A seed sown must be nourished with faith and belief. When you hold a picture of the final creation in your mind, you hold and maintain faith. You honor God’s desire to create something wonderful, and you honor His choice of your hands to help do the job.

How often do we plant the seed of a beautiful dream in the fertile soil of our minds, and then dig it up? What could you achieve if you allowed your seed to grow, continuing to focus your spiritual eyes on the harvest?

If it were not possible for you to achieve a dream, God would not have placed it in your heart and mind. Sow your seed, allow it to grow, and see an abundant harvest.

© Copyright 2005 by Steve Brunkhorst. All rights reserved. Reprinted from Achieve! 60-Second Nuggets of Inspiration bringing great stories, motivational nuggets, and inspiring thoughts to help you achieve your top potential. Get the next issue by visiting http://www.AchieveEzine.com

Weakness is not a human trait and certainly our species could have never gotten this far had we been weak. Some volcano, Earthquake or Saber Tooth Tiger surely would have ended our short evolutionary run. So why is it we have so many pansies out there now?

Why is everyone lacking strength of character? What happened to everyone, where did they go all of a sudden? Is political correctness the new rule, is that the reason for this lack of strength of character? If it is, well I say that is no excuse, rather it is a reason to press on, take some hits, tell it like it is and move the ball down the field for the common good, using reality as your guide.

Why then did everyone turn off, stop caring and why on Earth are they setting for a life of mediocrity? We can do better than this really; how so you ask? Well simple, we teach our children that nothing good in life is easy; that one must work hard and smart and do the right things in life. We must educate our selves and our offspring that doing what you say you are going to do is indeed paramount and that never giving up is a virtue of the highest level.

We must insure that our children are well versed in the realities of commitment, honor, perseverance, dedication and integrity. We must instill a sense of strength of character in every one if we are to make sure that the forward progression of mankind is indeed achieved. Consider this in 2006.

“Lance Winslow” – Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/

Do you know how all of us have to do some things we do not want to do?

It’s a big club and the only requirement for membership is to be a living breathing human being.

So what is your strategy for doing things you know you need to do but do not want to do? How do you get yourself to do the things you don’t want to do?

A few strategies

The most popular strategy seems to be putting it off, the infamous procrastination strategy. This works for awhile. The problem is procrastination makes little things seem big and short projects look like they will take for ever, and it all catches up with you.

Another popular strategy is waiting until the very last possible minute to get it done. I call these folks “pressure finishers.”

A client in their late teens told me recently that her strategy is to wait until her mom is “screaming like crazy.”

More useful strategies

Do it first – Get it done first and then move on into your day.

A little at a time – I hate weeding. I used to put it off until the weeds were about to take over. Now I just pull a few at a time as I walk through the yard.

Get it off your back – Sometimes the best thing is to just get it done to get it off your back and out of the way.

Visit http://www.TheArticleGuy.com for more leading edge tips and tools for writing articles that bring you prospects, publicity and profits. You can also subscribe to our monthly Article Writing & Marketing Tips Newsletter. You are also invited to visit my Express-Start Article Writing Program for more information on the next article writing tele-seminar.

Over the past several weeks I’ve received dozens of email solicitations for books, CDs and videos that promise to reveal newly discovered techniques to improve my life. These emails promise a wide variety of benefits: how to get rich, lose weight, meet the woman of my dreams and buy a million dollar mansion with no money down. In some cases the salesman will throw in a “Ginzu knife” or “pocket fisherman” if I order immediately!

While some of these marketers may actually believe they’ve invented a whole new system of creating a life anyone would want, the truth is “there is nothing new under the sun.” Mystics have studied the underlying principles that manifest reality for centuries. These same principles existed in the time of Socrates and they existed before the establishment of many of today’s religions.

Whether it’s money, love, health, or anything else, the principles are the same. In mystical terms, the Law of Attraction specifies that you will attract to yourself those experiences that match your beliefs. In the words of quantum physics, the observer affects that which is observed. Since you are the observer, it’s you who affects your life, that is, it’s you who creates your experience of reality.

You create your experience via your underlying beliefs–whether they are conscious or unconscious. If you’re not conscious of your beliefs then you must make them conscious. As Carl Jung said, “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” Or, as mystics will say, “Know thyself.” This includes your beliefs.

Before you begin to manifest your ideal life, you must get clear on exactly what you want. Examine your desire from a mystic perspective. Is it something that would be of benefit to many people or is it a purely selfish desire? If you are attempting to manifest your desire at the expense of someone else, there will be a steep price to pay in the future. Remember, “As ye sow, so shall ye reap,” so why saddle yourself with additional burdens? If your desire seems selfish, reframe it so that it’s of benefit to others.

Once you are clear on exactly what you want, then it is a straightforward matter to manifest your desire. There are three steps:

Step 1. Visualize exactly what you want for 5 minutes per day. Let’s say you want to go sightseeing in Paris. You may want to visualize the Eiffel Tower. Why 5 minutes? Because any longer and your mind will wander. Any shorter and you may not be fully fleshing out your vision.

Step 2. Put yourself in the picture, with detail and emotion. You have a clear view of the Eiffel Tower. But, if you don’t visualize yourself in the picture, the universe will manifest your desire, but perhaps not in the format you anticipated. For example, you might get a postcard of the Paris skyline in the mail. To avoid any misunderstandings, picture yourself standing in front of the tower. What are you wearing? Are you there with your spouse or some new love interest? Add details, employing all your sensory data. You’re eating a delicious croissant. The wind is blowing gently on a beautiful, sunny spring afternoon. You hear conversations en francais and you smell the perfume of the petite jeune fille standing near you.

Don’t forget to add emotion. Are you enjoying the taste of your croissant? Do you feel the joy of exploring a new country? Are you reveling in the sense of freedom as you travel the world? The more realistic you make it, the better.

Step 3. At this stage, focus only on the end result. This is very important. Don’t worry about how you get there. You can’t possibly imagine all the ways that your goal might manifest, so don’t limit yourself to people you know or the most obvious avenues to attain your goal. Let the universe worry about the details.

When you are done with your meditation, release it to the universe. Continuing to hold it in your mind will prevent its manifestation. You have to let go. To ensure you’ve let go, occupy yourself with a completely unrelated activity after you complete your meditation.

You’re ready to go; but first, a brief note of caution. This is an extremely powerful technique, so keep in mind the old adage, “be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.” An example, an acquaintance of mine was remarking on how lucky a friend of hers was to receive a $100,000 settlement for a personal injury she suffered. Within two weeks, my friend was involved in a moderately serious auto accident that left her with a bad back and a subsequent $50,000 settlement. Was it worth it? I don’t think so.

To ensure that you don’t manifest something similar, I recommend you close each meditation by saying, “If it pleases God, then so be it,” or “If this is for my highest good, then so be it.” This is an extra form of protection that will help you avoid needless headache.

Lastly, don’t think that because you’re busy visualizing you don’t have to take any action on the physical plane. For example, if you’re looking for a boyfriend or girlfriend, you can’t just sit inside and visualize your ideal mate, you still need to get out. You must go about your business, but be alert to opportunities that the universe is presenting to you.

The Law of Attraction is the basic underlying principle at work here. If you’re not manifesting what you desire then there are two possibilities: you aren’t clear on exactly what you want or you’re not aware of a certain belief, probably unconscious, that is contradicting your conscious desire.

Identifying your unconscious beliefs is a topic that we’ll cover in our next newsletter.

Until then, manifest your dreams, the mystic’s way!