It's A Beautiful Day To Be Positive

How does your mood affect creativity and your ability to achieve your goals? Does the weather and what’s happening around you affect your level of creativity and energy?

You’re probably sitting there going “OF COURSE! What stupid questions”.

Well I’m going to ask them anyway. I’ve been pondering how the level of personal energy I have at the moment, and how events in everyday life, affect our ability to produce great work, to be creative and energised, to stay focused and to move forward with the strategies and plans we put into place.

Last weekend I had an accident scuba diving which means I’m likely out of action for about 6 weeks (perforated ear drum, nothing major, but you can’t dive until it’s healed). Maybe not be a big deal to some folks but I am a bit mad, obsessed with diving and I was intending to be diving a LOT! This personal blow has left me feeling flat (and physically sore and nauseous) and it got me thinking…. If you’re working towards certain goals, business, career or personal, what impact do these types of ‘setbacks’ have on the delivery and timelines? How do you kick start yourself again and how do you regroup and find your creative spark again?

For me, it’s been a time to reflect and review. A time to work on other goals and recalibrate where I want to focus my energies. It’s not a bad thing to hunker down and spend a little time pondering your navel. So firstly, just let yourself be. It is OK and it will be OK.

Here are a few things that I’ve found helpful when things seem to be slowing me down or I have hit a roadblock that feels insurmountable:

1.      Review your goals and see if they are still the right ones. Big picture, are these the goals I still want to be focused on? (Yes, I’m still made keen on scuba diving!)

2.      Go through each goal in detail and review what parts are progressing and what parts aren’t – what can I do to kick start each part of the sub-goal, rather than focusing on the top level goal(more on this in point 4).

3.      Go for a walk outside and enjoy the sunshine – connecting with nature and gaining back perspective grounds you and ensures you’re not getting things out of kilter – for most of us it’s not brain surgery after all!, it’s not life or death, it’s a matter of personal achievement and if we feel we’re being successful or not.

4.      If you have one, take a big long look at your vision board – take a moment to feel good about the things that are already coming into being and then highlight in your mind one or two areas you’d like to spend more time on – for me this really helped to put no diving into perspective – I’ve already had a couple of amazing diving moments this year (diving with Tiger Sharks in Fiji in January and Grey Nurse Sharks at Broughton Island last week) so I can feel good about those moments and find other things to fill my time with until I can dive again.

5.      Focus on your passions – if you’re feeling flat or unfulfilled, why not spend time working on a small passion project (going for a bushwalk if you love being outdoors or spending 30 minutes on that new product idea you’ve never made time for). Kick starting your passions can help lift you from your doldrums and get you moving forward again.

So, today is a beautiful day, I can’t go diving but I can work on my dive logs, I can review and store all my dive video and photos. I can spend time working on my business vision and career plans and I can do the things that give me pleasure right now and start my creative juices flowing again. Don’t beat yourself up, find a new angle and get that small step in the right direction happening today... JJ