Creative Problem Solving

Creativity is a matter of perspective. It is the ability to look at the ordinary and see the extra-ordinary. When face with problems, we can take the low road of pain, frustration, and unhappiness or we can take the high road of information, value, and happiness. Your chose.

Learn to develop your creativity. Work puzzles. Engage in something artistic like paints or clay. Turn on the music and do impression dancing. Play games or rhymes or tongue-twisters with a child. Rearrange furniture. Prepare an exotic cru sine. Go camping. Make do. Giving freedom to your innate creativity lends itself to solutions.

Live life in pencil. There is usually more than one answer to a problem, or at least many sections to the overall answer. You are continually choosing from many possibilities. Try, fail, learn and try again. Brainstorm and come up with many possibilities, then focus on the most plausible without ruling out the absurd. Photo Journalist Dewitt Jones of National Geographic uses 400 rolls of film and 14,000 pictures taken per assignment with the results of 30 photos per issue.

Ask pertinent questions. Reframe problems into possibilities.
* what factors/causes/variables are we ignoring?
* what information do you still need?
* whom do you need to consult?
* for clarity, define the problem in writing
* what is the worst that could happen?
* what good could come even if the worst happened?

Do not be afraid to make mistakes. Lighten up; a mistake is a behavior that does not get what you want. Break the pattern. If you continue in a habit long enough, it becomes organized behavior performed by habit and never improved. Summons the courage to make the tough decisions.

Train your techniques. Until you own your new behavior, when pressure comes, you revert to the old pattern. Set up a safe environment in which to change and to practice. Practice becomes permanent as you practice correctly. Remember, you are always practicing. That is how habits are formed – or broken.

Accept problems as a passage of life. Once you realize that life is difficult, you transcend the difficulty and can creatively concentrate on problem solving.

Mona Dunkin is a Motivational Speaker, Corporate Trainer and Personal Success Coach.

Home for the Holidays

The holidays are filled with family, friends, laughter, parties, decorating, shopping, cooking --- and stress. How do you take pleasure in celebrating without stressing? Allow the following thoughts to put you more at ease and increase your enjoyment.

Focus on the real issue. Holidays are about remembering a meaningful event – the founding of a free nation, the virgin birth of Christ, the miracle oil that burned eight days, celebrating family, customs and culture. Do not allow the focus to be packed calendars to prove your status in the community, or elaborate decorations to showcase your talents, or lavish spending as a display of your generosity (and pending debt).

Surrender to family time and just enjoy being together. Sure, Uncle Joe might be a bore and your in-laws a little overbearing, but they are family. Approach the visits with the right attitude and a forgiving spirit. Let your guard down and do not be so sensitive or too critical. Allow the mistakes of yesterday to pass with yesterday and enjoy the holidays without incident. Your mate was by choice, the rest are by chance, so breath deeply, laugh spontaneously and embrace the loving energy that family brings. Live one day at a time, and appreciate that one day for what it is and for who you are.

Keep it simple sweetie. A gourmet sandwich with a relaxed host is more enjoyable than a seven-course meal with an uptight party-giver. Stay within your budget when gift giving and par down the list of recipients. I suggest that buying less and paying cash for holiday expenses upfront will help you get back the true spirit of the season. After the holidays, buying less and paying cash for the needs of life will help get back the true meaning of living.

Be creative. In decorating, greenery, ribbons and lights are quite elegant. Make a centerpiece of a beautiful bowl filled with pinecones and springs of holly gathered from the woods. Add ribbons to cookie cutters and hang on the tree. Replace wire ornament hangers with sparkly ribbon. For a festive look, intertwine garland of gold or silver around pictures or non-holiday nick-knacks. Find excitement in seeing how you can take existing items and give new life with small changes. Use the Sunday comics as wrapping paper.

Attach new meaning. Change your mindset toward the things you have. When our daughter was young I wanted to buy new exciting tree decorations and discard the old. It was not in our budget. Instead of seeing it as the same old stuff, I began to look at it as tradition. We used these traditional ornaments for the next twenty-five years and they grew more special each season. They have been gently retired to the attic.

If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter. The invitations were sent before the monsoon rains came and disabled our rural septic system. What to do? Without mention of the problem we welcomed our guests and continued the festivities as planned. When a guest had to go to the bathroom, he was greeted by a decorated port-a-potty and a smiley-faced sign: “Please do not flush the commode. If you prefer, Wal-Mart is five miles down the road.” The party was enhanced as others shared humorous stories of similar predicaments.

Memorize and live the Prayer of Serenity. Most people know the first four lines of Reinhold Niebuhr’s Prayer of Serenity, as they are used in all the twelve-step recovery programs. I encourage you to meditate upon the entire poem. (see below)

DON’T COPE, OVERCOME: Holiday is the shortened form of the term holy day. Holidays are times of renewal. Allow your creativity to be rekindled, spirit to be renewed, relationships to be rebuilt and the holidays will indeed by happy.

PRAYER OF SERENITY

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

the courage to change the things I can,

and the wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time,

enjoying one moment at a time;

accepting hardship as a pathway to peace;

taking as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it.

Trusting that You will make all things right if I surrender to your will;

so that I may be reasonably happy in this life

and supremely happy with You forever in the next.

Reinhold Niebuhr

Telling Your Story

“God made man because he loves stories.” Elie Wiesel

Everyone has a story and it needs to be told. Everyone has a unique life-experience; honor it. We are all connected –like the threads of a delicate cashmere sweater – and when one strand is broken, the whole is affected. Your family needs your story. You complete them in ways that you, or they, may take years to understand.

My mother kept a diary. Although the entries were scattered, my siblings and I have been blessed by her recorded journey. Through reading her thoughts, we gleaned awareness of her struggles and appreciated her strength. I gained insight into her character that, as a child, I either never noticed or took for granted. Through sharing her experiences, she shared her self.

Someone proclaimed that computerized robots would replace people. Robots are smart enough all right, but only because living, breathing, loving, intelligent human beings programmed their stories into them. Without that unique human element, computers are just blinking cursors.

Abigail Thomas, teacher of memory-writing seminars, says there is no right or wrong way to write your story. One can start at the beginning and continue up until today. Or start at the end and reflect back. Or pick and choose those special moments and compile your own unique book of short stories. She encourages writers to determine their motive for storytelling.

Having identified with Laura Ingles Wilder and Little House on the Prairie, my motive was to relate to our daughter my wonder years. Writing about life on the farm in West Virginia is more non-fiction than autobiography. Although based on facts, the conversations and outcomes may be more fantasy and embellishment than truth.

Ms. Thomas gives her students writing assignments, such as outline a specific ten-year period of your life in two pages. As one writes down choppy outline sentences – Kerrville camping trips, rainstorms in the pop-up, the found kittens - two things begin to transpire. One is that each fragmented idea floods your mind with record-able memories (Mick Collins was delighted the deluge had given us a story to distinguish one camping trip from another), and the other is the ability to pick and choose the most pertinent recollections.

Give pause for your mind to become a story-teller-thinker. Rather than rack your brain for stories to write, use times of routine chores to give your mind free-range wanderings, to think randomly and to casually associate past and present. Hear the sounds around you. Choose to be silent to reacquaint “yourself with yourself”.

Ideas come haphazardly. Keep a pad and pencil handy to jot down your musings. Just write them down without elaboration. Make notes whether they make sense or not, whether they are connected or not. As you go about your daily routine (or while sleeping), your mind – like finding pieces of a puzzle – will begin to stitch these happenings together.

When you sit down to record your stories, your muse will show up. You will begin to see how you got here from there. You will begin to recount how lives are connected and build on each other. You will see clearly and fuzzily, you will laugh and cry, you will discover contradictions and harmonies. You will appreciate all the lives you have lived (and I’m not talking Shirley McClain).

Your children and your grandchildren and your great-grandchildren will thank you. You are one of God’s creations. And you have a great story to tell.

Sharing Information

Communication consists of the giving and receiving of information. We decide whom we are based on how others interact with us. Although humanity seems to focus more on the negative than the positive, I suggest that is not true. In a backwards-crazy-mixed-up way, a judgment against someone is a disconnecting way of wanting that individual to live up to his own potential. 

Have I lost you yet? Stated more plainly: Criticism is an ugly way of making a request.

A child is told, "Do not touch that"; and he touches it anyway.  The study of linguistics suggests the child is not deliberately disobeying. His body reaches for what his emotions want and acts on what his mind heard which was "Touch that." Signals received/sent become our perception that in turn becomes our reality - only it may not be real. 

No wonder we are so complicated. No wonder life is so wonderful (full of wonder).

Watch out for the “boomerang effect”.  Information given may ricochet on you and the one to whom you gripped thinks less of you.  She sees you as being petty. Even if you put on a good act, the gossip (and that’s what it is) shows your true colors.

 

Be compassionate.  All are broken and all have faults. What are your struggles? Be careful lest you attempt to make another measure up to your standards. It’s more about you than him. 

 

Adopt a balcony perspective; step back and really see.  Take yourself out of the middle and allow the conversation to be different. This stance motivates to self-discovery and leads to responding rather than reacting. You shift from authority to stakeholder. 

 

Even when you think you have something constructive to say, make strides to remain silent. It can be difficult to simply be an observer when you interact with those who are not living as we think they should. Hurt, anger and condemnation are a natural response; certainly not open-hearted acceptance. If your comments are met with silence, graciously accept their response as a “do not interfere” position.

 

Speak truth only when done so in love. Real love.  Truth teaches with respect and kindness. Always choose high regard. Being obsessed with others and their problems keeps one a safe distance from working on his own issues.

Please let me hear from you. 

Developing Contentment

“He is the richest who is content with the least.” Socrates

Contentment is the art of being satisfied with what you have. Make a radical commitment of gratitude and thankfulness for what you already have. Anything that appreciates (or is appreciated) goes up in value.

Step up to the challenge of getting debt free and living within your means. Test and see that buying less and paying cash for incidentals of life will help get back the true meaning of living.

Challenge your spending habits. On a scale of 1-10, will you use it? How often will you use it? It is of value to you? Can you afford it? Budgeting focuses on lack and attracts spending. Focus on savings; see the challenge of getting a bargain. Let the savings feeling supersede the spending feeling.

Use wisdom in planning and in spending. Be frugal; shop for bargains and sales. Time is currency. Are you willing to trade time with your family – which you can never get back – for time spend to get money to buy stuff.

Anything worth anything takes discipline. Most Americans put spending ahead of savings yet saving is what builds security. Spending patterns account for your future. Living within your income = happiness. Living outside your income = misery.

Develop a healthy respect for “Just $1.00”. Depending on your income tax bracket, you have to earn more than $1.00 to replace the $1.00. Fifteen percent bracket repays $1.41; 28% = $1.73; $31% = $1.82; 36% = $2.01; $39% = $2.16. When you spend, you are spending more than $1.00. When you save, you are saving more than $1.00.

Stop creating new debt. Credit cards cost you money. Even if you pay them off every month you are tricked into buying more than if you paid cash or check and actually saw it come out of the account. There is no such thing as a free lunch, i.e. earn cash back, airline tickets, vehicle, etc. Credit card users spend 212% more with plastic than with cash; it gives a false sense of having more money than you do. Opportunity costs. Do not be suckered into the “monthly payment” trap.

Number one cause of financial failure: THE INABILITY TO DELAY GRATIFICATION
Number one means of failure to delay gratification: CREDIT CARDS

Use your natural creativity. Remember, necessity is the mother of invention. Get control of your spending (and greed) and see how elimination promotes fulfillment.

I'd love to hear your insights. 

Fun-Filled School Days

Dr. William Glasser, founder of The Quality School, believes that nature gave us a gene that craves fun, and that this fun-need is satisfied through learning.

Think about it. Children are born explorers, wanting to know what is out there and testing everything to see what it looks like, tastes like, feels like, sounds like or smells like. The reward for this fun is knowledge.

The philosopher Socrates saw education as a spontaneous process. Although school definitely has its place, learning has more to do with living and experiences than with books and classrooms.

Teachers are planters of ideas and cultivators of your own imagination. All a teacher can do is give information and explain its application. What you do with that information is up to you, so embrace it rather than reject.

Attitude is a major player in successful learning. Education prepares you for an unknown future so develop a taste for learning, and encourage your children to love learning. Our technological progress has grown exponentially because we, as a nation, refuse to settle for the status quo.

There is a direct correlation between a poor attitude and low achievement. A negative attitude breeds frustration and produces stress. See learning as a challenge to be met and overcome. Watch your self-talk; purposely think things like: “I enjoy learning. I will understand this. I feel good about increasing my knowledge. Math is fun.”

Learning is not only obtaining knowledge but also knowing how to use that knowledge and how retrieve it at a later date. A disinterested student might question, “Why do I have to know this anyway?” Knowledge will make you a more interesting person and the world a more interesting place. The beautiful thing is, once you learn it, it is yours to keep and to use.

Learning is fun. Reflect on your most fun filled days. It is probably because you were learning something. Perhaps you were improving a skill, enjoying nature or improving an interpersonal relationship. Bottom line, you were learning. And enjoying.

The more healthy your self-esteem, the more easily you learn. A primary cause of poor learning is having a poor self-image, not a lack of ability. A person is controlled by his self-image; the way you see yourself determines the way you behave. It does not matter what others believe about you, it only matters what you believe about yourself.

Cooperation is important. Each person is wonderful, special, unique and important. The trouble comes when we expect others to treat us like we are wonderful, special, unique and important. The more you see your good qualities and the more you see what is good about others, the more you will perform accordingly. And life will reward you accordingly.

Make your school days quality by wanting to learn and by always doing your best. Get a good night’s sleep so you will be refreshed and ready for fun. When needed, be sure to ask your teacher for help. She is your friend and co-partner.

I'd love to hear your insights. Please comment.

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Quality Quiet Time

In a busy rush, rush world, you may think you do not have a second for yourself. And to take a few minutes would be selfish. Not so. You cannot give out of an empty basket. Taking a few minutes for quality quiet time pays huge dividends.

Enjoy the learning curve. The things I suggest may seem hard, but I suggest they are more unfamiliar than hard. We recently redid the grandkids playroom and I installed ceiling tiles. I read the instructions and understood how to do it. I became frustrated. It wasn't as easy as it sounded. You see, I had the head knowledge but had not developed the skill level. Not wanting to leave the room unfinished, I persisted. By the time the project was done I was proficient enough to be willing to tackle another room. Every new skill has a learning curve.

Hear yourself think. Busy-ness lends itself to chaos. It keeps neutrality at bay. Sit for a minute and push the mind chatter aside. Listen objectively to your thoughts and consciously decide which ones are keepers, which ones need to be jettisoned and which ones need to be modified. Since thought precedes accomplishment, thinking things through leads to beneficial output.

Release your oomph. Rushing hampers vim and vigor. “The faster I go the behinder I get.” Do you identify? Thoughtful solitude turns potential energy into actual force.

Bio-rhythm benefit. Eight hours of restful sleep resets one’s internal clock. The hurry-hurry of a disorganized life easily disrupts it. Deliberate pauses allow the body and mind to catch up with each other and work in tandem. It also strengthens your immune system. Not getting restful sleep? Frequent mini-relax episodes are a precursor to sustained nightly sleep. Meditation before bedtime sets up the cadence-tempo-pulse-regularity sequence for the night.

Release your creativity. Quiet reflection loosens the thinking bottleneck. Thoughts that dart here and there comes together to produce and construct.

Solve problems. Similar to defragging on the computer, reflection allows the files of your mind to realign and settle into the right spot.

Balcony perspective. Step back and really see from a detached viewpoint. This stance allows the conversation to be different. You are stimulated to self-discovery that gives power to respond rather than react.

Build self-esteem. Get in touch with your true self. Get to know the wonderful you that you are.

Meditation is not another thing to add to your already jam-packed to-do-list. It is not a time waster. Actually, it is a time maker and peace generator. Try it. You’ll like it.

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Stop Quelling Your Talent

What have you promised to do and not followed through on? Or what have you begun and stopped? Or what did you start and fail? Disappointments are tutors to test how badly you want to overcome. Following are some commonly used talent quelling excuses and the power gleaned from reframing the objection.

“They won’t like it.” They who? Are you going to allow another’s projected doubt to kill your dream? The complainers are usually those who are wasting their own talent. They want to quash your potential to lessen their bruised ego. You do not need another’s permission to live your life. Pursue your goals while maintaining a civil relationship with “them”; they’ll come over to your side and may even assume bragging rights to your success.

“I tried it once but…” or “I might be hurt again” You are right. There are few guarantees in life. How sad to be your own worst enemy by being blinded by fear of pain. Delve deep to find the lessons learned from the first failure or hurt so you can try anew with wiser vision.

“I’m afraid” Oh what? Success? I identify with that sentiment even though I find it to be an absurd reality. Remember the adage “You cannot cross a bridge before you get to it”? Possibly the fear is from mentally attempting to bridge a gap before you grow into it. Everything has a learning curve. Give yourself room to grow.

“What if it is not safe?” What if it is safer than you think? Are you willing to risk success?

“I’m not worthy.” How is worth determined? Worth is determined by the price you are willing to pay. If you go to buy jewelry and the price is out of your range, you might say, “No. It’s not worth it.” If the price is okay for your budget and you purchase the gem, you did so because to you it was worth it. Make yourself worthy by deciding what price you are willing to pay for your success. Then do it. Revel in your increasing self-worth as well as your blossoming net-worth.

“Oh, I really don’t have that much to offer.” How much is “that much”? Remember the two loaves and few fishes among five thousand people? And who invented the paper clip? How would you hold your papers together without it? Do you have a smile to share? A kind word to give? A small service to offer? A tiny product that would make life easier or more fun? Allow your little to become much.

“Who would listen to me?” Ah, playing small are we? What is the bigger issue: that you need someone to listen to you or that you have something to share? When you have a burning passion, delivery is fulfilling even when the audience is small. And as you grow, the audience grows.

“I might lose who I am…” Or, you just might find out who you really are. You really are a wonderful and unique individual with infinite worth and value, endowed with gifts and talents to offer your family and – yea verily - the world. Go ahead. Find out who you really are and lose your fear of becoming genuine.

In the principle of “like calls to like”, remember that energy-out matches energy-in. Whatever you sow is what you receive. Start plowing and planting. Increase your energy with movement. Now. Today. This minute. Pick up the phone and call. Get out your door.


NEED A MOTIVATIONAL SPEAKER: One of America's most interesting motivational speakers can be enjoyed in person in a presentation tailored to your specific need. Whether organizational, business or civic, you will be entertained with her humor, challenged with her gift of uncommon insights, and motivated by her thought provoking poems. Contact Mona at 254-749-6594 or mdunkin@flash.net.

Benefits of Getting Your Z's

Every parent knows that a cranky child is more pleasant after her “beauty sleep”. It works for adults too. If your life has become so busy that you have decided to give up on sleep, please reconsider. There are numerous benefits. Here area few.

Sleep aids in the processing of emotions. REM is when sleep experts say dreaming takes place. Supposedly we start by reviewing the events of the day and trying to make sense of them. Thus the right-brain/left-brain battle brings on some weird images or nightmares. As the night progresses these issues are settled and dreams become more positive, going into the realm of problem solving and goal setting type of daydreaming. What a shame to get too few hours sleep and miss out on this beneficial imagery.

Sleep helps to balance perspectives. Research says that because of the right-brain, left-brain switch over during sleep, one’s dream state gives more input and creativity than one’s awakened state. Also, in the relaxation of sleep, the intuitive side willingly receives new insight from the logical side.

The old recommendation to “sleep on it” bears a lot of truth. While your body is being reset through the restful mechanics of sleep, the mind is fully active, exploring through buried files unhindered by conscious thought. The engaged mind reviews and sorts and categorizes and comes to conclusions. Even though it happens frequently, I am still impressed when I awaken with the answer to last night’s cross-word puzzler.

Sleep helps elongates short term memory. Harvard University studies taken from different angles, has impressive research showing sleep improves information storage. Students that study intensely followed by sleep then awaken to testing, scored consistently higher than students who studied intently then immediately was tested while “it was still fresh on their mind.” There is something mysterious about sleeping that allows the mind to better understand information, associate it with prior knowledge, store it and easily retrieve it later.

Experts say the amount of regular sleep effects one’s overall weight. Too little restful sleep the more pounds on the frame and the more difficulty in losing weight.

Sleep resets our systems. As a person who functioned well on only a few hours of sleep, I was reluctant to stay abed longer. All of these benefits have been motivators to me to and have definitely improved my life and health. It may take a while to learn new sleep habits and it is well worth the effort.

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Letting Go of Stress

Just let go of stress! Yeah, right!

We think in picture. Visualizing an image makes the transfer from a thought to a reality somewhat easier. It is like having a light bulb go off in the brain. Picture a trapeze artist swinging from pole to pole, readying to make one precarious mid-space maneuver. He/she must release one reality (the pole), make a swift unsupported 360 degree turn and grasp a solid handhold (the other pole). With training, the tactic is handled with grace and facility.

Determine what is neutral. No matter how much you may protest, the signal light did not turn red just to ruin your day. The signal light is a neutral devise set on a timer, blinking green, yellow, red - over and over, day-in, day-out, regardless if the driver is harried or relaxed. How might you be more relaxed if you choose to view inconveniences as simply that and not as a personal affront. How might your relationships improve if you choose to see all encounters as neutral – a mere request for information, a simple comment on your performance, or an appeal for your help?

Practice makes permanent. Practice makes perfect only if you are practicing correctly. Choose to mentally rehearse phrases that put you in effective control. Phrases such as “This too shall pass”, “I will take the high road”, or “I will not be ruled by my emotions.” Make visual notes to self that will keep your new-found tension releases at the forefront of your mind. Think: we are always practicing; do you want your responses to be perfunctory or perfecting?

Practice marks improvement. There is a learning curve to every worthwhile endeavor. Imagine a stressful situation occurring again, only this time you are more prepared: You are early instead of late; relaxed instead of rushed; rested instead of cranky. You have given mental thought to strategy and worked through possible problems to find solutions. You are pro-active rather than reactive.

See the big picture. Erica Black’s mother was diagnosed with cancer and given a short time to live. Erica came to terms with everyday life and what is really important. She looked at all the things she should be doing and willingly put them on the back burner. She said, “We’re going to be with Mom. It’s just knowing what needs to be done at that moment instead of stressing out about being here or there.” Keeping Balance, Wacoan Dec. 09, www.wacoan.com

Pressure vs. anxiety. Know the difference. Although there are demands on one’s time, the truth remains that if you do not set your schedule, then someone else will set it for you. In accepting life’s responsibilities, do not turn duty into drudgery. Have a willingness to do whatever you agree to do, even if it was thrust upon you. Make it your choice and set yourself up to receive creative ideas.

Make it fun. Remember learning to ride a bicycle? You would fall, skin your knee and get back on again. It was the challenge that kept you going and you found it fun in the process. Accept the dare to see something humorous and self-improving in every stressful situation. Philosopher Brian Johnson encourages us to “eat stress like an Energy Bar”.

My friend, Linda Austin, proclaims “I don’t do stress.” Unfortunately, I am not there yet, but getting closer every day. Join me in letting go of stress.

We welcome reprinting of articles in your newsletter or magazine, providing credit is given as follows: “This article was written by Mona Dunkin, Motivational Speaker and Personal Success Coach, www.monadunkin.blogspot.com or www.monadunkin.com.”

Productive Waiting

In past articles we have looked at the importance of goal setting and working to bring them to fruition. I stand by that as a necessary element to get ahead. I also suggest the balance of waiting. Here’s what I mean…

Life is not a dress rehearsal. Live in the now and enjoy today. Always waiting for the tomorrow that has no promise of being, shows a discontent with the present. Ironically, when longed for riches do eventually come, most yearn for a simpler time. It is the struggles that make us strong.

Consider the seed. My then four year old grandson was drawing and said to me, “Come here, Nana, I want to teach you something.” He had illustrated a plant’s growth starting with a seed, to growing underground, to pushing through the earth, to fragile leaves, to a full bloom flower. His insight was, “Even though you can’t see anything happening, it is still growing.”

Plan for relative wait time. They happen every day: checkout line at supermarket, bank deposit, traffic snarl, someone to get back with you. Use it productively.

Refuse to engage in irrelevant wait time. Do not waste today through nonproductive mental activities such as pining for a better job, wanting the children to grow up, or longing for reduced responsibilities. Do not mindlessly wait for a future event or some solution to magically happen or fantasize about success, fame and fortune.

Life is a constant. It is today. You can improve your circumstances but not necessarily life. Be careful how you build thereon.

Life is conflicting. An individual can be content and still suffer lack. One can have outer wealth and inner poverty. I call it a "restless contentment".

Expectant waiting. Be fully engaged in today and alert to the divine. Be at east with uncertainty. Do not be restless with today. “Beauty arises in the stillness of your presence.”

Out of the mouth of babes. A few years back we vacationed in the hills of Missouri and my grandchildren and I re-enacted Little House in the Big Woods. For hours we foraged for materials - rocks, limbs and random treasures - to building our house. It rained the next two days and then they had to go home. We never got to play in our project. Katie said, “That’s okay, Nana, the most fun is in the building anyway.”

The consciously looking forward to, the energetic creativity, the joy of accomplishment, the fun of teamwork - this is what makes the now so special. Revel in it.

We welcome reprinting of articles in your newsletter or magazine, providing credit is given as follows: “This article was written by Mona Dunkin, Motivational Speaker and Personal Success Coach, www.monadunkin.blogspot.com or www.monadunkin.com.”

Creative Problem Solving

Creativity is a matter of perspective. It is the ability to look at the ordinary and see the extra-ordinary. When face with problems, we can take the low road of pain, frustration, and unhappiness or we can take the high road of information, value, and happiness. Your choose.

Learn to develop your creativity. Work puzzles. Engage in something artistic like paints or clay. Turn on the music and do impression dancing. Play games or rhymes or tongue-twisters with a child. Rearrange furniture. Prepare an exotic cru sine. Go camping. Make do. Giving freedom to your innate creativity lends itself to solutions.

Live life in pencil. There is usually more than one answer to a problem, or at least many sections to the overall answer. You are continually choosing from many possibilities. Try, fail, learn and try again. Brainstorm and come up with many possibilities, then focus on the most plausible without ruling out the absurd. Photo Journalist Dewitt Jones of National Geographic uses 400 roles of film and 14,000 pictures taken per assignment with the results of 30 photos per issue.

Ask pertinent questions. Reframe problems into possibilities.
* what factors/causes/variables are we ignoring?
* what information do you still need?
* whom do you need to consult?
* for clarity, define the problem in writing
* what is the worst that could happen?
* what good could come even if the worst happened?

Do not be afraid to make mistakes. Lighten up; a mistake is a behavior that does not get what you want. Break the pattern. If you continue in a habit long enough, it becomes organized behavior performed by habit and never improved. Summons the courage to make the hard decisions.

Train your techniques. Until you own your new behavior, when pressure comes, you revert back to the old pattern. Set up a safe environment in which to change and to practice. Practice becomes permanent as you practice correctly. Remember, you are always practicing. That is how habits are formed – or broken.

Accept problems as a passage of life. Once you realize that life is difficult, you transcend the difficulty and can creatively concentrate on problem solving.