I read an article recently that discussed The Creative Mind. I found some of the information in the article to be quite useful as it gave me one of those “ah ha” moments of understanding.

In essence it described why some people seem to be naturally creative while others are not. And it elaborates on a point, which I am going to discuss here, that illustrates how to keep your creativity going. You entrepreneurs that are reading this will be able to identify with the following example. You get an idea for a new company and you are super charged about it. You do all of your research, due diligence, and can’t wait to jump in and get started. In the beginning while things are fresh and new, everything seems exciting and the creativity of new ideas, products, and services just seems to naturally flow. After things begin to flow on their own and the business settles into more of a routine, you slowly begin to become bored or worse, burned out. So, you take a vacation, get away from work, and recharge the batteries. When you return, you are ready to run full steam and you probably had some great revelations of new ideas while on vacation. Does any of this sound familiar? The article I read explains this behavior and why these actions transpire in our brains. You can actually keep the creative juices flowing without going on vacation and keep your energy about you as well.

Your brain is a creature of habit. When you initially undertake a task or learn a new skill, an entire network of neurons will process this stimulus. After about the sixth time, a subset of neurons handles most of the heavy lifting and the processing of the stimulus becomes rather automatic. How often do you have to concentrate on tying your shoes? For most of you, the action is automatic and the brain wastes no energy processing the task. Tying your shoes becomes automatic, easy, and mundane.

Similarly, this happens with your business and your life in general. You brain is only forced to think when it is presented with a new stimulus. Perception and imagination are linked because the brain uses the same neural circuits for both functions. Your perception is based on past experience and classifying or categorizing various stimuli. Creativity and imagination begin with perception. And since your perception is based on past experience, it is difficult to derive truly novel ideas when you are performing the same actions daily in the same surroundings.

Now you can begin to see where the vacation and sparks of creativity come into place. Your surroundings change, your actions change, and the brain wakes up and has to process all types of new stimuli. Haven’t you heard of someone having a breakthrough idea while in the shower, taking a drive, or taking a walk? Their surroundings and typical actions changed, so subsequently their brain kicks into gear and the creative juices start to flow. Ever heard of a writer having writer’s block and going up to a cabin in the woods to write? It’s not the quite of the solitude, but rather the change of stimuli.

You want to spark creativity and invoke the imagination contained within your mind? Seek out environments for which you have no previous experiences with. Visit a new place, do new things, meet new people. New places, people, and experiences unlock your creativity because it causes your perception out of its normal classification and categorization mode. This opens up new possibilities of perception which, in turn, allows the imagination to run wild like when you were a kid. The brain can not rely on past experiences to classify this new, novel experience.

So, if you suffer from creative block, boredom, or burnout, shake things up a little bit. Only after you force your brain to break the shortcuts that your perception has built between categories and past experiences can you begin to think outside the normal boundaries of your mind. To truly think “Outside The Box.”

Register For The Millionaire Mind Intensive Seminar – This is guaranteed to shake up your perception! (If you are asked for a reference number, it is 661164).

I learned this from one of Robert Kiyosaki’s books. I am unsure as to whether he is the originator of the quote. But, nonetheless, it is still thought provoking.

“An ounce of perception takes a ton of education to change.”

While going through your day, monitor the types of perception you are projecting. What you may be inadvertently projecting could take much time, money, and effort to correct in the future. But on the flipside of that coin, constant and uniform projection can create a perception that your competition will find hard to dismantle.

Regardless of whether you are entrepreneur, business person, a regular working Joe, or unemployed, we all experience stress in some form or fashion. Stress can actually be physically harmful to your body and depending upon your temperament, harmful to others.

Seriously, stress produces acid in your body. It is the number one producer of acid, beer and cigarettes come in second and then sugar. But I digress. This acid attacks the weakest parts of your body first. If you ever wondered which muscles in your body are the most prone to react negatively to homeostasis instability, they are the muscles that begin to ache when you become stressed. Hence the saying, “I carry my stress in my neck, back, or (what ever body part it happens to be).” If you do not get the stress under control, your body begins to saturate in acid. The alkaline elements of your digestive system can not counteract the over acidic environment so the next response is to increase fat content. Your body will funnel acid into the fat to attempt to neutralize and bring homeostasis back. If you are still stressing and your fat becomes supersaturated at a rate faster than it can neutralize the acid, your body increases cholesterol to coat the acid. The acid your stomach produces can actually eat through your veins. After you have surpassed the ability for cholesterol to effectively counteract the effects of acid, your body begins to pull calcium form your bones and they become brittle. Tony Robbins spoke of a boy that was so acidic that he broke ribs when sneezing. As you can see, continual stress can be detrimental. It is beneficial to calm down. So here are a few tips I have found that work for me in alleviating stress.

Incidentally, this topic is fresh in my mind. Originally I was going to write on a different topic tonight. I had the entire post complete and I was tailoring a sponsors ad. Well, I typed in some javascript incorrectly and wham bam my entire post was gone and the always useful undo button would not work. Needless to say, my stress levels began to elevate. But, I believe everything happens for a reason and if that event did not occur then this post wouldn’t have been created.

The last sentence of the previous paragraph is a continual technique that can help alleviate stress as a continuous factor in your life. The power of perception. Alter your perception of things. Don’t just think that the glass is half full. You actually need to alter your perception to believe that the glass is half full. Alter your perception and instead of looking at your mistakes as negatives, view them as lessons and try not to make them again. After all, human beings learn from mistakes. Robert Kiyosaki stated in one of his audios, “If we did not learn from our mistakes, no one would be able to walk.” And that is so true. This power of perception change is a continual one and not a quick fix. But if you truly apply this technique, you won’t have to use quick fixes as often.

Listen to your breathing. This is the quickest way to reduce your stress level. I have not found it to completely alleviate my stress, but it is an easy quick fix. First pick an image that is pleasing to you. Now close your eyes, mentally picture this vision and concentrate on your breathing. If you are in a noisy area, put your thumbs over your ear canals. Let the imagery elevate your mood while you continuously listen to your own breathing. While listening, slow your breathing down to a calmer pace.

Listen to music. Music has been proven to evoke many different emotions. You know your favorite music selection. If you are at work, take a break and listen to your mp3 player. If you are in the car, turn up the radio and sing. Singing helps to regulate your breathing and elevates the mood. If you can’t listen to an mp3 player, a radio, or internet radio at work, or if you cannot take a drive, then sing to yourself. Pick one of those songs that may be corny, but you can’t help but be in a better mood while singing it.

If you aren’t at work, exercise. There have been claims that exercising produces endorphins. Endorphins are natural narcotics manufactured in the brain to reduce sensitivity to pain and stress. Producing endorphins will help to curtail your sensitivity to stress. Aerobic exercise also regulates the breathing into a pattern which, as I already stated, reduces stress and produces a calming effect.

The last thing I do is to deliberately put myself in a place of ease. Depending upon the amount and intensity of the stress, I choose different places of ease. For normal everyday type stress that may have started to mount and combine, lasting into days, I visit a hot tub or visit my message therapist. A half hour relaxing in a hot tub or an hour at the massage therapist melts all stress away. As a general rule, I also take two vacations a year. Vacations are always a stress eliminator to me.

As you can see, stress can be bad for you physically, affect those around you causing finanical effects and causing imbalance and disharmony at home. Take the appropriate steps to eliminate stress before it eliminates you. If you have any stress reduction techniques that have worked for you, please comment on them.