Where must I say NO to the people that are distracting me from my highest priorities?

If not, one of the best ways to overcome blocks and determine your first steps is to call upon the wisdom of others. In his 1937 article Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill suggested that readers create a Master Mind group of individuals to support them in achieving their goals. Back then Hill understood the value of community, and his article was my first introduction to the power of group mind. I immediately set out to create my own Master Mind group and found it to be enormously helpful. This experience led me to use brainstorming formally as a fun and easy way to find any solution to a problem, or to identify any creative idea necessary to move forward with a plan. For the last 15 years I've relied on this step to kick start my favorite projects. Because orienting your life around your values can feel risky, it's easy to feel blocked creatively or paralyzed by fear. A brainstorming session with friends or coworkers (strangers too! This man is free climbing without a safety harness. Would you describe him as adventurous or reckless? Because of priming, your impression might be influenced by what you were thinking about just before meeting him. A study by Higgins and colleagues (1977) suggests that your impression will depend on the traits that are accessible to you before you met him. Participants in this study were told they would be completing two unrelated studies on perception and reading comprehension, but in actuality the tasks were related. In the first study, participants performed a task in which they identified colors while reading words (commonly referred to as a Stroop task). In this task, you might see the word bold printed in blue letters, and your job would be to identify the color blue. This task gives the researchers a way to make certain ideas accessible for some participants but not for others. Half of the participants were randomly assigned to read words with negative implications (eg, reckless). The other half of the participants read words with positive implications (eg, adventurous). Such acknowledgment repeated over and over will serve as positive reinforcement. The idea behind this is to build the habit of acknowledging your accomplishments rather than brushing them away as no big deal.

If you want to give yourself a reward, you can do so, but make sure the reward is proportionate. No need to do anything big--unless you accomplish something really significant, of course. Also, at the end of your day, take a moment to acknowledge yourself for having completed your three tasks. What gets rewarded gets repeated. Treat yourself, whether it is by watching an episode for your favorite TV show or by reading your favorite article. Remember to start small. The key is to accumulate small wins to help you build momentum over time. Small victories add up and make a big difference in the long run. When you gather people together for the sole purpose of generating great ideas, amazing energy gets released and miracles start to happen. I recommend conducting your brainstorming session in one of two ways. You can invite a large group of people together to brainstorm just for you, or you can make it a smaller group (six to eight) and let everyone benefit. There are advantages to both. When I've needed quick ideas, such as the names of people who can provide certain services, I've invited ten to fifteen people to join me on a conference call. I always offer to be of support in return. I've used smaller groups when I've wanted to hold ongoing meetings as part of a community of like-minded friends. Years ago I belonged to a brainstorming group that met at a local articlestore cafe once a month. That group was the catalyst for many of my successes, including my dream of becoming a published author. To set up this type of brainstorming session you need to: In the second study, participants were asked to read information about a person named Donald who takes part in various high-risk activities and to answer some questions about their impression of Donald. You can see from FIGURE 3.

Participants who had previously read negative words pertaining to recklessness were likely to form more negative impressions of Donald, whereas participants who had previously read positive words pertaining to adventurousness tended to view Donald more positively. Their impressions differed despite the fact that they were presented with identical information about Donald! What led to these different impressions, of course, were the different ideas that were primed in the participants before they read about him. This finding suggests that our impressions of others are shaped by salient schemas. Forming Impressions In this experiment, people's impressions of a man named Donald were influenced by adjectives that had previously been primed. If they had just read several positive words, they formed a more positive impression than if they had just read several negative words. The vertical bar graph plots the percentage of participant reporting each type of impression. Use the carrot, not the stick, by encouraging yourself instead of beating yourself up. As the author and founder of Hay House Publishing, Louise Hay, put it, Remember, you have been criticizing yourself for years and it hasn't worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens. Exercise: celebrate your small wins Write down three tasks you want to complete today, finish them and celebrate your success. Repeat the process every day until it becomes a habit. Be proud of yourself How often do you take the time to pat yourself on the back and say, I'm proud of you. If you're like most people, probably not that often. It's a sad thing that we criticize ourselves each time we do something wrong, but seldom congratulate ourselves when we do things well. Tell them you'll be brainstorming for an hour or two and invite them to bring a need of their own. If you're working with a partner, each of you should invite two people to join you so that you have a total of six.

Make the brainstorming session a festive and productive occasion. For example, you might hold a potluck dinner or serve appetizers and dessert. Make sure everyone benefits. Ask each participant to bring a specific need they would like to brainstorm and be sure to use a timer. It's important that everyone gets a chance, and there's nothing more off-putting than someone who takes up all the time. When considering potential participants think beyond family and friends to acquaintances, colleagues, or people from your professional network. You might even consider some of the people with whom you do business such as your massage therapist, dental hygienist, lawyer, or accountant. I've found that some of the people you'd least expect to be interested, are interested, when given an opportunity to join a group of people who are excited about achieving their goals. It plots the positive impression, negative impression, and mixed impression in case of primed with positive and primed with negative. The y-axis of the graph is represented as Percentage of participant reporting each type of impression beginning from 0 to 100, in increments of 10. The percentage of participant reporting positive, negative, and mixed impression in case of primed with positive is 70, 10, and 20 respectively. The percentage of participant reporting positive, negative, and mixed impression in case of primed with negative is 10, 70, and 20 respectively. Can Priming Change Our Behavior? It is one thing to push around people's judgments with simple primes. There is a much larger debate in the field as to whether priming simple concepts can actually affect behavior. Initially, there seemed to be some good evidence for behavioral priming. In one often-cited study (Bargh et al. Unbeknownst to them, several key sentences were designed to prime either a schema of rudeness or a schema of politeness (eg, four words would unscramble to make they usually bother her or they usually respect her). The truth is, most of the things you do during the day, you do them correctly. People with a healthy self-esteem aren't necessarily the ones who are successful in the eyes of society.

Often, they are normal people living a normal life. What differentiates them from others are the things they focus on and the way they talk to themselves. They focus their attention on what they're doing well and continuously encourage themselves. They understand that making mistakes is normal, and they don't expect to get things right the first time, or all the time. They know they will improve over time. When they don't know how to do something, they aren't ashamed of asking for help. On the other hand, people who feel inadequate often live in the fear of being unmasked. They focus on what they're doing wrong and are afraid people will think they are impostors. You'd also be pleasantly surprised by the level of interest people have in sharing ideas and supporting the success of others. To make setting up your first brainstorming session easier I've designed an e-mail invitation that you can send to potential participants. Modify this invitation to fit your needs: Dear Friends, I've recently decided to_____ (change careers, move to a different part of the country, find a new school for my son, etc). To help me move forward with this goal in a productive and efficient way, I'm hosting a brainstorming session in my home on the evening of _____. As someone who has demonstrated a commitment to success, I thought you might be interested in participating by bringing a goal or need of your own. This is a great opportunity to get some creative ideas and resources that might help you to move forward quickly and easily. If you're interested in joining us, please send a reply and I'll get you all the details. Each time I've conducted a brainstorming session the level of creativity that gets expressed when people come together to help one another always amazes me. When participants then tried to return their packet of surveys to the experimenter, they found her stuck in a conversation that didn't seem likely to end anytime soon. The researchers reported that only 17% of those primed with politeness-related words interrupted the conversation within a 10-minute time frame, compared with 64% who were too impatient to wait that long.