Now that I have a clear sense of purpose and at least a vague idea of what to do about it, it seems the proper thing to do to share how I got there. So if you’re feeling even half as unclear about things as I was a couple of months ago, here are seven action steps you can take to get you closer to being in the clear.

1. Visit your archives.

Okay, so my inner historian wants to be heard this morning. What I mean by visiting your archives is to take a trip back into your memories and find the times where everything appeared to be a little clearer than it is right now. Discover what you were doing at the time that made things flow a little smoother, where you seemed to be on track and absolutely clear about what you were doing. You may surprise yourself by finding patterns of thought and behaviors that you’d forgotten about.

Here’s an example from my own experience:

Much of my life until I moved to where I am now was centered around music. I pretty much learned to read music before I learned to read words, and could often be found in front of the piano. Sometimes I’d play, sometimes I’d just let my fingers wander over the keys. Just being in the same room with a piano brings out all sorts of clarity and creativity in me. Once I realized this I went out and bought a couple of books of old jazz standards and started making time to play the piano every day. For me the clarity that comes from sitting at the piano was something that I had forgotten about.

2. Write everything down.

And I do mean everything. Goals, dreams, thoughts, and feelings will all play a role in helping you get clear. Using a journal is an amazing tool for getting clear on what you want and, more importantly, why you want it. You’ll be able to see the patterns as they happen, and you will start seeing things in a different light once they are down on paper.

Another example: I am currently reading The Writing Diet by Julia Cameron. In my previous attempts at using a food journal it was a really clinical process. I’d record what I ate and when, how much I exercised, and what my blood glucose levels were before and after. No thoughts, no emotions, just numbers.

I’m only about halfway through the book, but already my journaling has changed and I’m seeing patterns and beliefs around food that I’d never realized before. In only a few days since I’ve been reading, I’m a lot more clear on why I eat the way I do, and what needs to happen to change that so I can really lose weight this year.

3. Read what you write.

This may seem like a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised at the number of people I know who write in their journals and never go back to reflect on what they’ve written. They treat it like a brain dump … and literally dump out the thoughts and feelings without ever stopping long enough to wonder why they felt that way.

When you really get “in the zone” while you’re journaling, you may find that you don’t consciously know what you’re writing. In essence it really is a brain dump because you’re just letting the words flow without stopping to think about them or edit them. You may surprise yourself with what shows up on the page after one of these sessions. Especially if you’ve gone into it asking for clarity.

4. Visualize what you want.

I’ll admit, I have a hard time with this one. I’ve never been very good at visualizing but for people who can do it, it pays amazing results.

When you can see and feel what it’s like to have the end result already, you can gain a real sense of clarity about what steps you need to take next to make the vision a reality.

5. Focus on one thing at a time.

One of my biggest obstacles to clarity was lack of focus. Makes sense doesn’t it. It took me a long time (years, if we’re being really honest here) to realize that by trying to focus on several things at once and thinking I could do all of them, I was unable to get clear about even one.

So how did I decide what to focus on? For me, I got clear through journaling. I did a lot of writing, meditating, and writing out what came through in the meditations. I asked for clarity and prioritized all my projects and business plans and then went with what felt right in my heart. What I learned when it comes to focusing is to trust your intuition. That little niggling feeling in your core really does know a thing or two about what’s best for you.

If that doesn’t work, you can always go for Step 6….

6. Pick a goal, any goal.

Most people have a lot of goals they want to accomplish. Personally, my goal list covers about three pages, and that’s just for this year!

If you have several things you want to accomplish, just pick one and get started. Your starting point doesn’t have to be perfect, you just have to start somewhere.

The words of Les Brown come to mind here: “You don’t have to be great to get started, but you have to get started to be great.”

7. Take responsibility for your action (or inaction).

When you get right down to it, how much clarity you have is something that is one-hundred percent in your control. You can either do the work to get clear, or not. The choice, and therefore the control, is yours.

If you are willing to do the work to get clear, I can tell you that having that clarity and focus around your purpose is a wonderful thing. Your life flows more smoothly, and opportunities and experiences that you never saw coming will appear on your doorstep.

Finally, say a big thank you to your friends when they urge you to get clear on what you really want. You may have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the idea of being clear and focused, but once you get there you’ll wonder why you waited so long!

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It’s a pretty daunting challenge now to realize that I don’t have to settle for anything less than the best that life has to offer, and that I can be more, do more, and have more than I ever allowed myself to believe. I have to say, I’ve come a long way from the days when my mother told me I’d better marry the first guy who asked, because it would likely be the only offer I’d ever get. But that, as we like to say, is a story for another day (or an acorn from another tree, if you’d like).

So, what can you do to raise your own expectations for yourself, and how does that affect your self esteem? Here are five ideas for you to ponder.

1. Learn Something New

This is an easy place to start raising your expectations and your self-esteem. You can learn something as big or as small as you want to begin with. You could learn a new style of cooking. You could learn how to dance. You could go really big and learn how to fly a plane. The sky is your limit, literally! Regardless of what you decided to learn, making that decision to expand your knowledge and then taking action to actually do it will go a long way to boosting your self-esteem. And when you succeed in this, you will also come to expect that you’ll succeed at the next new thing you try too.

2. Dare Yourself To Do Something

How many times did you do something on a dare when you were younger? When was the last time you accepted a dare?

Personally I can’t remember the last time… oh wait a minute, someone dared me to share a post on Facebook the other day, and I did it! Not a very big challenge, I’ll admit, but it felt pretty darn good. Other than that, I’m a pretty tame person. I don’t do challenges, and I sure don’t do dares on a regular basis. But there are days when it’s good to challenge yourself. To dare yourself to take just one more step, to believe for just one more minute that you can do more than you did in the minute before. When you challenge yourself and complete that challenge, you will also find that your sense of self-worth grows too.

3. Spend Some Time Outdoors

When I say spend some time outdoors, I don’t mean reading a book in the garden, or lounging by the pool. I mean really get out there and challenge yourself to do something big. Learn to rock climb, hike a trail you’ve never done before, learn to canoe, even go camping for the first time. There’s nothing like Mother Nature for challenging you to accomplish things you’ve never even dreamed you could do. And I can tell you from experience, when you do, you will feel like there’s nothing you can’t handle, no challenge too tough for you. Your self-esteem will soar and you will know that you can do more than you’ve ever let yourself believe before.

4. Step Outside Your Comfort Zone

Raising your expectations and your self-esteem is all about moving outside your comfort zone. It’s not always fun, and it’s pretty much guaranteed to be hard work when you move beyond the safe zone that you’ve set for yourself. But here’s the thing … the more you move beyond your comfort zone, the more your comfort zone expands. It moves in relation to you and your willingness to grow and take the risk to try something new. You will grow and you will grow stronger in your self-belief just by pushing that boundary back even a little.

5. Do Things You Never Believed You Could

When you suffer from low self-esteem, there are a lot of things you don’t think you can do. When you commit to yourself, expecting more of yourself becomes the norm and you will find yourself trying and achieving things you never believed you could. Your self-esteem will continue to grow, and you will continue to try new thing, and you will find that it is a self-propelling circle of growth. And even if you experience failures along the way, it will be so much easier to bounce back now because you know you can do whatever you set out to do.

It’s All About Moving the Boundary Line

When it comes right down to it, raising your expectations is all about moving the boundary lines of where you are comfortable. You can’t experience growth without at least a few growing pains, and I’m not going to sit here and lie to you and tell you it’s all easy. It can be scary — I know this because I’m doing it all right along with you — but I have faith in you, and I know that you can do it if you really want to.

There’s a popular quote attributed to Henry Ford that says “If you think you can, or think you can’t, you are right.” Raising your expectations puts you squarely in the “think you can” camp. Belief in yourself is an amazing thing, and as you continue to move beyond your boundaries, your self-belief can only grow, right along with your self-esteem. Those low expectations will be a thing of the past!

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When you don’t believe in yourself, and your self esteem is in the gutter, it’s really hard to see just how you could be worthy of love, happiness, or success. After all, who can love you when you can’t even love yourself.

I know it’s hard to change the belief that you are not worthy. Especially if you’ve been in a relationship where there was emotional or physical abuse. It’s hard to believe in yourself when the person who was supposed to love, cherish and protect instead spent their time breaking you down and destroying your self esteem. It took me over ten years to recover to the point where I wanted to even try to go out and face the world. Writing an article like this to tell you about it would have been unthinkable before now.

Fortunately there are ways to overcome low self esteem — ones that won’t turn you into a hermit like me. Here are five ways you can boost your self esteem and start believing in yourself again.

1. Learn to say thank you.

One of the hardest things to do when you have low self esteem is to accept a compliment. Since you have this ingrained belief that you are ugly, stupid, unlovable or whatever you’ve been told is the reason you’re unworthy of love and success, it’s almost impossible to believe that there are still people out there who will see through all that and tell you how beautiful you are, inside and out.

Learning to say thank you and just accept the compliment instead of trying to explain why someone is wrong about you is one of the best things you can do to boost your self esteem. While it may be hard at first to accept a compliment at face value, it does get easier the more often it happens.

Knowing that there are people out there who do see the good in you is an incredible boost to your self-esteem. The more you smile and say thank you, the more you start to believe it for yourself and the stronger your own self-confidence becomes. Before you know it, you will be accepting compliments like a pro.

2. Accept Yourself and Your Uniqueness

It’s easy to compare yourself to others and find yourself lacking when you suffer from low self-esteem. There’s always someone who is prettier than you, smarter than you, richer than you.

In order to break this habit, remember that you are your own unique person, and you have qualities and strengths that no one else has. Focusing on your strengths and what makes you unique will go a long way toward improving your self-esteem.

3. Affirm your uniqueness.

It’s not enough to just say that you are unique. It’s believing it in the very heart of your being that makes the difference. Using affirmations to remind yourself that you are unique and worthy of love, happiness, and success is a good way to build up your self esteem. The more you tell yourself you are worthy, the more you being to believe it.

Affirmations are great because they belong totally in the present moment. The instant you say “I AM worthy” you ARE worthy. Even if it’s only for that moment, and you go back to thinking you’re not in the next … that one moment is enough to get you started on the way to improving your view of yourself. The more moments you can string together where you affirm and believe in your own self worth, the stronger your self-esteem becomes.

4. Avoid negative people as if they were the plague.

Really, negative people and negative energy ARE a plague on your self esteem. Do not let other people steal your dreams or make you feel bad for following your heart just because they are too afraid to follow their own.

If you can, avoid them at all costs. Sometimes it’s the people who are closest to you who do the most damage because they think they are helping. If you can’t avoid them do your best to limit your exposure and don’t share your goals and dreams with them.

5. Get professional help if you need to.

There are times when our self-esteem has taken such a beating that the only way we can get it back is with professional help. If you can afford it, a life coach is an excellent option to help you see that you are worthy and give you the tools you need to start believing in yourself again.

If hiring a coach is out of your budget range, you can find excellent books and online programs that can help you boost your self-esteem and start living up to your full potential.

Knowing you are worthy of all the good things life has to offer is an important part of being able to live your life to the fullest potential. Yes, it may take some work to get your self-esteem back up to the healthy levels you want, but the results are well worth it.

You can do anything you put your mind to, as long as you believe you can do it. Improving your self-esteem gives you that belief and the ability to achieve!

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(This is a guest post by Anita Fiander of AnitaFiander.com)

Inside this very short article I am going to explain to you how I have created massive change through addiction recovery in my life and how you can do it too.

How do I know this stuff works and will continue to work?

Because I have invested almost 25 years researching and then taking action to change my life, from a huge career change, tackling alcohol and nicotine addiction and learning to use my dysfunctional past to help other women.

In order to live a full and complete life, we must learn how to let go of past failures and disappointments and not carry them with us into our future.

Hanging on to pain, bitterness and disappointment from our past is a heavy burden. It affects your moods, attitudes, relationships, job and all aspects of your life. Negativity eats away at your self-esteem and destroys any possibility of a life free from pain.

Fortunately, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel! Your future doesn’t have to be a repetition of your past. You don’t need to be destined to a life of pain, regardless of what you’ve already been through. You can lay down your burdens. It’s okay for you to be free. In fact, you deserve it!

These four steps will help you move forward and find the freedom you need to begin living a fuller, more enjoyable life, through addiction recovery.

1. Talk about it. Discuss your past pain, fear, disappointment or trauma with a trusted friend or family member. Fully express the feelings associated with the situation: cry, scream, or do whatever you need to do to release the bottled up emotions in a safe way.
   

• Until you really talk about the feelings connected to your past, you may not be able to move past them.Once you’ve spoken the words, release them from your mind forever. As hard as it may be, it’s the only way to free yourself from your past.
  

2. Use a journal. Writing in a journal is an excellent way to pour out your pain. A journal offers the safety of knowing your words are just for you and won’t be read by anyone else. Don’t worry about spelling, grammar, or even if the words follow a logical progression, simply write from the heart.

• Physically writing your thoughts and feelings can release your emotions so you can move past them.

3. Seek forgiveness.Many people misunderstand the meaning of forgiveness. Forgiveness doesn’t mean what happened to you is unimportant or you’re saying it’s “okay.” In fact, forgiveness isn’t about the other person at all.Forgiveness simply means that you’ve made the choice to let go of the desire to exact revenge and punishment, and you’ve found closure within your heart and soul.

•  Forgiveness releases you from the burden of carrying the pain any longer. By choosing to forgive, you can stop thinking about the past so it won’t control your future.
  

4. Seek professional guidance. You can choose to get help from a life coach or therapist.The people closest to us aren’t always the best choice to help us work through our pain.

   It may be difficult for us to fully open up about our deepest pain or it may be hard for them to step back far enough to help us through it.
   

• Seeking guidance from a professional gives us the safety of relative anonymity, which can make it easier to share our problems, through addiction recovery. Often a coach or counselor can help us see a new point of view, which can help us move forward.

About Anita

Anita Fiander is an Addiction Specialist, Speaker, Author & Recovery Coach, Lifelong Psychology Student, and a Thought Leader in Addiction.

…And her passion is to empower women through addiction recovery.

We invite you to find out more about Anita Fiander and her programs. Let us see if what she has can help you.

Find her here: http://www.anitafiander.com/contact

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There are ways to end your inspiration’s vacation early. Journaling is one of them. Writing gratitude lists is another. Other times, it’s an inspirational quote or photo that really helps to fire up the creativity engine. But when nothing else works, sometimes all it takes is an affirmation to wake me up and get me inspired again.

1. Affirmations are yours and yours alone. You choose them or create them based only on how they feel to you.

One of the reasons that affirmations seem to do the trick when nothing else does is because they come from you. When you think about it, inspiration that comes from within really is the best form.

Sure it’s nice when others say things that get you thinking and moving in the right direction again, and that card or photo that you received might have touched the right chord inside. But when you can motivate yourself and remind yourself why you are passionate about your purpose and why it used to excite you to jump out of bed first thing on a cold winter morning, you will be that much more inclined to believe it. It doesn’t matter how much others tell you that you’re smart, funny, beautiful, or worthwhile if you don’t believe it yourself.

2. Affirmations get you creating again.

You may be asking yourself how this works. Affirmations work best when you either write them out, or read them to yourself. When you start writing your affirmations down every day, just the act of writing daily unlocks something inside of you. I’m no expert on exactly what happens here but I know it works. Writing affirmations has jump-started more than one article or blog post for me when nothing else worked to break my lack of motivation.

3. Affirmations encourage you to keep going.

Since affirmations are, by their very nature, positive thoughts — after all, who would want to affirm something negative — they encourage you to keep going when the journey gets a little rough. And isn’t that what inspiration is all about … taking that extra step when you really didn’t think you could go any further?

4. Affirmations can change your life.

Some of the best affirmations I have ever used have ended up having life-changing results for me. In the last article I talked about living in the moment and you you get to choose how you live each moment. Affirmations are a great tool for helping you make that choice. Simple statements like:

I AM happy
I AM at peace
I AM full of energy
I AM healthy

repeated over and over again can change how you feel in the moment. String enough of those moments of being happy, healthy, energetic or peaceful together and you may find that there is no room for negativity at all because you are choosing only positive thoughts.

5. There’s an affirmation for every situation.

It doesn’t matter if you are feeling totally uninspired, unmotivated or just downright unhappy you can create an affirmation that helps you to move beyond those negative feelings.

How To Use Affirmations

Once you’ve decided that affirmations are a tool you can use, there are several ways you can use them.

1. You can write them out or say them out loud first thing in the morning to start your day. Some people (me included) do both.

2. You can make a screen-saver for your computer out of them.

3. You can write them on pieces of paper and tack them up in places where you’ll see them all day long.

4. You can write them on pieces of paper and carry them in your pockets or in your wallet, so if you need them during the day you can pull them out and read them quickly.

Affirmations are one of those tools that everyone can use, are completely personal and based only on your needs. They can be used in a moment and can change the energy of that moment and the ones that follow forever. You can write your own, or use ones that others have created if they resonate with you. Regardless of how you do it, using affirmations will help to re-ignite your inspiration and your creativity.

If you’d like to writing your own affirmations, here’s an article to get you started: How To Write Affirmations.

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Before you start thinking I’ve lost my mind, let me just say that doesn’t mean I don’t have goals and plans for the year. I have a list as long as my right arm of places I’d like to go and things I’d like to do this year and some of them even involve work! More importantly though, it means that instead of focusing one hundred percent on business this year, I’m leaving time to live in the moment and explore all the opportunities that come my way through unexpected doors and windows.

Here are five reasons why I’m doing this, and why you should too.

1. Life is too darn short to live anywhere else.

It’s probably not politically correct to say, but I’m not getting any younger, and neither are you. Each day only comes once, and what you make of it is up to you. If you spend it all focused on the future it’s just too easy to let the opportunities that lie right in front of you go past without even recognizing them for what they are.

How many doors have you passed by that might have led to awesome experiences because you were too focused on either the past or the future to notice the now?

2. You get to be spontaneous and open some of those doorways.

You know that saying, “you’re only young once”? Well, it’s true. As I alluded to in the point above, life really is too short to have every minute planned and scheduled. I can honestly say that I think that’s why I’m having such a hard time getting focused on work this year — I forgot to build play time into my schedule.

If you’ve been around here for any length of time at all, you’ll know that my inner child lives pretty close to the surface. I like to play and when I can’t I get very grumpy. Living in the moment allows me to work when the work needs to be done, but also leaves room to set it aside and go out to play when the opportunity presents itself. Whether it’s coffee with a friend, or just a walk in the park and a swing on the swings I much prefer allowing myself the freedom to do that than worrying about whether or not I should be doing it. I guess when it comes right down to it, I’d much rather make memories than money.

Which brings me to my third reason for living in the moment…

3. You learn a lot about the person in the mirror.

The best thing you can do for yourself is really get to know yourself … what you want, what you need, what’s important to you … not what other people tell you that you should want, need and care about.

Living in the moment allows you the freedom to pay attention to what you really want your life to be like. It may surprise you to see that what you really want is not always what you have planned for.

4. You can let go of your worries just for the moment.

Have you ever noticed that when you spend most of your time planning for the future, you are worrying about things that haven’t even happened yet?

Worrying about the future can lead to stress, which leads to all kinds of nasty things – heart disease, high blood pressure, and diabetes included. When you live for the moment instead, you can choose to let go of your worries and your stress, just for that moment! Even if you only stop worrying for a minute and then go right back to it, at least you will have had one minute’s contentment and peace.

Try it now. Stop and take a deep breath and feel the stillness when you do. Breathe in all the calm, peaceful energy you can conjure up and don’t let any worries spoil your minute.

When you live in the moment, you can choose peace or stress every sixty seconds. Which will you choose?

5. There’s actually room for family and friends here.

When you’re stressed and stuck worrying about what has happened in the past, or what will happen in the future, there’s really no room for the people in your life now. You might have a life but you sure don’t get to live it.

Making the choice to live more fully in the moment allows room for your partner, your children, your family and your friends to be a part of your life. Not only do you get to have a life, you get to live that life, to spend time with the people that are important to you. Whether that means going on vacation, or just going for a walk in the park together is your choice.

Learning to live in the moment is one of the nicest things we can do for ourselves. Regardless of your reason, you won’t be sorry that you made the choice. Your friends, family, and most importantly your inner self will thank you.

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You might thing that because I’m writing this in December that it’s all about the holidays. It’s not.

Sure, this is the “season of giving” but giving to others and putting yourself out there is a year-round thing. You shouldn’t just give during the holiday season, and you shouldn’t just give in order to get something back. It’s a given that you will get something sooner or later … what and when is entirely up to you. How you give is just as important as What you give.

One of the best ways to give is through volunteering. Giving of your time and expertise is a win-win situation, both for those you are helping, and also for yourself. There are so many ways you can give of your time. You can:

• coach a kid’s sports team
• visit shut-ins in seniors’ homes and hospitals
• volunteer at a local animal shelter
• volunteer at an abused women’s shelter
• read textbooks into audio format for sight-challenged students
• do yard work for your neighbours who might have trouble doing it themselves
• babysit your grandkids
• organize a benefit for someone who needs help
• volunteer your expertise to help people with income taxes (only if you’re qualified, of course)
• help cook meals at a homeless shelter or soup kitchen

These are just a few things that come to my mind when volunteering is mentioned. There’s really no shortage of places you can volunteer, or things you can do for others.

So, just what can volunteering do for you? Here are ten ways that you get just as much out of what you give as the recipients of your gift do.

1. You are a part of something bigger than yourself. It’s a good reminder that you don’t live in isolation, and that you can make an impact on others when you give of yourself.

2. It’s a big confidence booster. Sometimes just knowing that you’re lending a helping hand to someone else will make you feel better about yourself.

3. It makes you feel good about life. Helping others is a beautiful way to share your energy, making you feel good about life in general, not just about yourself.

4. You’ll make new friends. It’s almost impossible not to make a friend or two when you’re sharing your time and talents with people who share similar interests and passions.

5. You can develop a support network. It’s more of that “no man is an island” thing. Volunteering allows you to make connections with others who could end up as a part of your support network. You never know when you might need a friend or a helping hand yourself.

6. You get to see how the other half lives. It can be an eye-opening experience, and maybe just a bit of a reality check too when you come face to face with the fact that there are other people out there a lot worse off than you.

7. You get “real life” experience. The things you learn in the course of your volunteer time can’t be learned from a book, or in a class room. It’s why many schools now make community service mandatory in order for students to graduate.

8. You’ll learn something new. Chances are no matter how much of your own expertise you share, you will end up learning something you didn’t already know.

9. You’ll get some work experience. Regardless of what type of volunteer work you do, it’s experience. And may future employers weight experience gained from volunteer efforts just as highly, and in some cases higher than paid work.

10. You are making a difference in someone’s life. What you might think of as just an hour of your time may make the difference of a lifetime to someone else.

11. It’s a good reminder that it’s not always about you. You can get away from your own problems and challenges by focusing on someone else’s troubles. You might even find a solution to your own issues as you’re helping others.

12. You’ll add to the strength of your community. By helping others become stronger, you make the whole community stronger.

13. You will get to add a line to your resume. Employers want to know you’re a team player. By showing that you’re willing to volunteer, you’re showing that you’re willing to be a part of something that’s not just about you.

14. You can meet new contacts for business. Volunteering lets you meet new people from all walks of life. You will never know until you get out there just how one meeting can impact your future or your business.

15. You will gain a reputation for being helpful. This can be a great public relations tool if you choose to use it that way. Being known as a helpful person who cares about others in the community can bring many good things your way.

Volunteering is not only a way for you give and grow yourself, it’s also a way to help your community grow. Not only will you learn about yourself, what makes you tick, and maybe even what your life passion is, you’ll also learn more about your community, the people in it and what makes them tick too. And, as Zig Ziglar once said, “You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want.“

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But it’s more than that. In a lot of ways, your mind is like a closet that you shove all kinds of things (thoughts) into and forget they’re there, only to have them remind you of their presence when you have to open the door to get something else out.

I’m convinced, based on my own experience that creativity comes best with a clear mind. So taking the time to declutter mentally as well as physically is a good way to, well, create more access to your creative center. (I’m no psychologist though, so take whatever I say here to be my personal experiences, not professional advice.)

So if you’re not feeling as creative as you’d like to, here are a few of my favorite ways to clear the mental cobwebs and make room for new ideas.

1. Do something physical.

You know, that dreaded “E” word…
Yes, I’m talking about exercise. I never would have believed that exercising can clear your mind until I joined a gym and started working out every day. Even if I only go in for 20 minutes and walk on the treadmill, it leaves me feeling clearer and cleaner bot mentally and physically and I come home ready to sit down and write for the rest of the day.

2. Organize your space.

When your space is organized, it’s much easier to organize your thoughts as well. If you’re feeling mentally cluttered because there are already too many thoughts taking up room in your head, then having to deal with physical clutter only makes it worse. Take some time either at the beginning or the end of each day to organize your space, especially your work space, and you will find that your creative energy flows more smoothly when it doesn’t have to navigate piles of clutter and unfinished work.

3. Organize your thoughts.

Just as you organize your space, you can also organize your thoughts. I realize that doesn’t sound very inspirational, or even creative to suggest making lists and writing things down but it really does help. If you can journal or even keep a list of the things you have to do, the things you’d like to do, and the ideas you come up with during the day it makes it much easier to access the mental energy needed to tackle each item on the list at the appropriate time.

4. Focus on one thing at a time.

There’s nothing more mentally tiring than trying to juggle several projects at once. Focusing on one project at a time lets you focus all your creative energy on that work so that you can create to the best of your ability.

If you must work on more than one thing during the day (and we all do to some degree) make sure that you give yourself enough of a break in between so that you approach each project with a clear mind.

5. Make some “Me time” for yourself.

Speaking of taking a break, make sure you always take some “me time” during the day. Even if you can only manage ten or fifteen minutes it will help to recharge your body and spirit as well as your mind. Having only to focus on yourself instead of meeting the demands of others for those few minutes will give you a lift and time to clear your mind.

6. Go for a walk.

One of the nicest ways to use your me time can be going outside for a short walk. It is a great way to not only clear your mind from a previous project, but to gather new ideas and creative energy. Let your mind wander free and take in the sights and sounds of nature all around you and you’ll be surprised and what you come up with that you might not have considered if you’d spent the entire day indoors.

7. Find other ways to relax.

If walking is not your thing, (and granted it’s not for everyone) then do something else that you find relaxing. Whether you like to curl up with a good book, or soak in a nice bubble bath, or even hit the local pool for a swim these are all ways to get in some quality me-time and let your mind wander at will.

8. Learn to meditate.

Or, if you already know how, then make time to practice every day. One of the best ways to clear your mind is through meditation. I’ve also found that not only do I get rid of the mental dust bunnies, I also come up with some of my best ideas just by meditating.

9. Take a deep breath.

Finally, if you need a quick mental clearing, nothing beats just taking a deep breath or two. Breathe in calm, peaceful energy and exhale all your stress, tension, and mental clutter. I find this works especially well if I’m in the middle of something and the words just won’t come.

Clearing out your mental clutter is essential to being more creative. Try using some of these tips to get rid of your mental dust bunnies and you will find that older ideas and energy that no longer serve your purpose are replaced by fresh new energy and ideas that will leave you at your creative best once again.

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It’s not just a physical awareness of ourselves that we need to be concerned about, although that is an important part of it. To really be the best you and live your best life, there needs to be an awareness of yourself on all levels — emotional, mental, and spiritual as well as the physical.

Being self aware goes hand in hand with playing to your strengths because you won’t truly recognize and appreciate those strengths, much less actually use them, unless and until you have a good handle on who you really are as a whole person.

So just how does one go about becoming more self-aware?

It all starts with self-reflection. You can do this in a variety of ways including making lists of your strengths and weaknesses, or writing about who you are now and who you see yourself as in the future. However you can best do this, your self-reflection should include an inventory of all your parts.

It’s especially important to take note of those parts of yourself that maybe you don’t like so much. And be honest with yourself, because we all have those niggly little bits we’re not so fond of and would probably ignore if we thought we could get away with it. However, to really be self-aware you need to accept that those pieces are just as much a part of you as your best features and the things everyone loves about you. Because only in accepting that they’re there do you open yourself up enough to be willing to change them if that is what you truly want.

A second big piece of the self-awareness puzzle is trusting in your intuition. Pay attention to what you like and what you dislike, what feels right, and what sets those little alarm bells ringing in your head. Too often we’re all guilty of wanting to do something or be something we’re not, and shoving all the signals of impending disaster to the side.

When you pay attention to your gut feelings things will flow much more smoothly and you will be more aware of both yourself and your environment. The cool thing about your intuition is, too, that the more you use it the stronger it gets.

Although it seems counter-intuitive, you can also become more self-aware by going outside yourself. If you have friends and family members that you trust, and who support you in your quest to live your best life, then by all means ask them for help in pointing out your strong points. Sometimes we really don’t see ourselves in the best light and it takes another person to point out the obvious to us.

Whichever way works best for you — and it may well be a combination of all three — take the time to get to know yourself on your own terms. Knowing what direction you want to go in, what you like and dislike, and even how others see you will all stand you in good stead and go a long way toward setting you up for the success you deserve.

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The book is “Find Your Strongest Life: What the Happiest and Most Successful Women Do Differently” by Marcus Buckingham. One of the things that Buckingham says, and that has been reinforced through a variety of conversations and random sound-bites over the past few days is that we’ve all been condition to look at, and focus on, what is wrong in our lives and try to fix it. And that’s not what we should be doing. We should be playing to our own unique strengths and finding those “strong moments” that support our strengths and make us feel like we are being the best person we can be.

So as I begin to really work on developing my own strengths and creating my own strong moments — and after taking the Strong Life Test I can tell you they are not what I thought they were — I thought I’d share with you my own ideas on how I’m going to do this.

First, and this is one of the steps in the book as well, I am going to accept that maybe what I thought about myself all these years is not really what I am meant to be doing. Buckingham says that the first step is accepting what you find out about yourself. Whether you take a third-party test, or figure it all out through self-reflection, you may end up like me and find out that your strengths lie in areas that you’ve consciously steered yourself away from.

Why?? Well, it could be one of any number of reasons but I’d be willing to bet that somewhere in there is a healthy dose of fear. It may be that you’ve listened to others for so long that you don’t hear your own voice, and when it does finally break through all that excess noise it scares the heck out of you. Mine did.

I let my abusers beat down my strengths and turn them into weaknesses because I was too scared to fight back. And then I let them define me for so long that learning how to listen to my own voice is a very scary experience — one that’s kept me locked in a weak life for the past ten years. Believe me, breaking out of that box is exciting and terrifying all at the same time!

So I’m learning to accept my strengths for what they are and I’m getting excited about the possibilities of what they can do for me. It’s a work in progress, but along with it I am also growing a backbone. And a sense of self-confidence that I don’t really think I’ve ever had. Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that no one else is going to believe in me until I believe in me. And really, in the big scheme of things the only person who really needs to believe in me is me.

I’m changing the stories that I tell myself. So I am no longer focusing on the negative parts of my life. Since, as Buckingham says, “Attention Amplifies Everything,” why would I want to focus on the things I don’t like. I choose instead to focus on what works and to give that my attention. I’m playing to my won strengths and letting them take up the slack for any negative or weaker parts of me.

Setting goals works for some people, and for others it doesn’t work so well. If you’re a goal-setter then you can write them down and post them on your walls and mirrors and kitchen cupboards. I’m a little too flighty for that sometimes (I call it adaptability and consider that one of my strengths) and so goals don’t always work well for me. What I’ve found does work though is using a vision board and affirmations. Instead of working toward a goal that’s set somewhere in the future, I like the idea of focusing on the outcome as if it has already happened and working toward making that my reality.

While I’m doing all of that I’m also learning how to accept that these things take time. Because when I’m being really honest with myself I can admit that this isn’t all going to happen overnight no matter how badly I want it to.

You’ll notice I don’t call it patience. That’s because I have an issue with patience. Once upon a time a good friend told me to stop asking the Universe to grant me patience, because when you stop and think about it that’s just like asking for lots of bad sh** to happen so that you can learn how to deal with it. Ever since she told me that I’ve tried to avoid asking for patience.

So there you have it. A quickie crash course in playing to your strengths. It’s going to be a journey learning and discovering a whole new way of being. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. Do you want to come along?

Image Credit: Kimberlee Kessler Design

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