Starring You

Create a Mental Movie to Achieve Your Goals

We all have something in life (or work) that we want to accomplish. Most of the time we don’t know how to go about achieving these goals and we just allow ourselves to fail by simply giving up. You can increase your chances of success by creating a mental movie. It is a creative and simple way to program your mind–and it’s fun!

Making mental movies is a creative visualization technique used by Neuro-Linguistic Practitioners to help clients reprogram their mind to overcome fears or phobias, heal past traumas or to achieve work or life goals. If you know the goal you want to achieve then you can take advantage of this powerful tool to help you create a successful outcome. It’s a 4 step process.

Step 1: Decide your goal

Identify the goal you want to achieve–even if it seems incredible or impossible to you. It must be specific. Write it down.

Step 2: Create a blueprint or script

Okay–you know the end point; the goal. It is important that you create a blueprint or script describing the exact change you want to make. You are author, director and producer of your movie. For it to be useful and create a successful outcome it must:

  • Use all five senses
  • Be very descriptive and
  • Be written in the present tense

For example, if your goal is to become more confident in social situations your blueprint or script might look like this:

I am at a party for a friend’s birthday. The room is brightly lit with music playing. There are red, blue, yellow and green balloons everywhere. I can hear people talking and laughing. I am standing in the center of a group of people talking about a movie. Everyone is listening. They are smiling at me and I feel happy. The beat of the music pulses through me making me feel invigorated. I feel comfortable talking and listening with others.

With every sip of my drink I feel stronger and more confident. Each bit of the delicious food makes me feel happier. I am smiling…

You can include different scenes, just like in a real movie. So change the situations to include any that are important in helping you to create the movie of the life you desire.

Step 3: Relax

This is how you will get your subconscious mind to open up and be receptive to your mental movie, so  it is very important to relax.

Find somewhere comfortable. Close your eyes. Tense every muscle in your body and then release. Repeat twice more. Now breathe in deeply through your nose to a count of five and out through your mouth to a count of eight. Repeat this three times or until you feel relaxed.

Step 4: Play your movie

This is where the mental programming takes place. While relaxed, play your mental movie showing you living the goal you set. It is important that your movie is played as if you are living it now. Feel the emotions, experience the sights and sounds. Don’t forget to include all your senses to make the experience feel real.

To make sure that your new mental program is fully installed you will need to repeat steps 3 and 4 every day for 30 days for best effect.

“Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.” – Napoleon Hill

Are You Living Your Values?

In Rich Chicks’ Monetary Identity class (coming up on October 11), we spend a lot of time on values. Not just picking values from a list and tossing them into a values basket and pushing the basket to the values checkout lane, though. It is deep work that also involves looking at your beliefs around prosperity and other life areas. Truly knowing your values and how they affect your life and decisions is amazing. Putting those values into your life is important and Mickey Mikeworth and I help you do that over the six-week course of the program.

I am conscious of my values. One of them is creativity. I love to learn, love creating things, love other people’s creativity and love helping people expand their creative thinking. Finding ways to express my artistic creativity is fun—I am not particularly gifted in drawing, but I remind myself that it’s not about the product. It’s about the process—the artistic process of creating something that didn’t exist before you took it out of your own head and put it on paper (or canvas or a photoshop screen).

Finding time for just creativity, for play with messy things or writing, sort of slips off the calendar pushed out by “gotta do” things. So I made creative play a “gotta do.” I take classes—sometimes in person, sometimes online—and SHOW UP. Just like I do for a client or a meeting I have scheduled.

Right now I am taking a nine week class called Weekly Wonderland, which meets for two hours once a week. It was dreamed up by my heroine and mentor, the wildly creative Marney Makridakis of Artella Land.  It was when I was in her coaching program ARTbundance that I learned about process not product and began to consciously play. I took ARTbundance after I was already a certified coach, because I felt there was something missing from the traditional coach approach. And I was right—art and play was missing from the coaching model I had learned.

Wonder Word Collage

Our first Wonderland class was about wonder. Here is how it went: we first did a word collage around the word wonder. This is not a thinking thing—it’s fast, so not much time. Here is mine.

I invite you to try a word collage when you are stuck about something. It’s a great way to quickly get something down to work with.

Invitation to the Party in My Head

Based on our collage—or not—we had several minutes to create some kind of invitation or anything that came to mind about wonder. Here is my Invitation to the Party in My Head.

The class uses Zoom, a video conferencing program so you can see everyone else, if you want. Then everyone shares their work—it’s fun! What are you doing to feed your creativity? It’s a big part of your total prosperity!

Interested in Monetary Identity? Check it out!

Ten Minute Trip to a New You

1440201632zm1nsTake 10 minutes to dream about lands far away.

Have paper and a pen handy.Relax.

Imagine you are in a new place with all new rules.

You have a chance to invent who you are.

There are no limits.

  • Where on the planet would you be?
  • What does your hair, clothing, and body look like?
  • What would you spend you daytime hours doing?
  • What would you eat for breakfast?
  • How would money flow into your life?
  • Where would you buy your food?
  • What kind of books or magazines would you read?
  • How would you communicate with the outside world?
  • How much sleep would you get in a 24 hour period?
  • What is exciting about this new land?

________________________________________

Now come back to your present life.

  • How does it feel to be back in your present life compared to the dream life?
  • Will you REALLY travel to your dream life or will it stay a dream?
  • What can you do to bring part of this far away land back to your present day life?
  • How can you add more juicy stuff to your daily routine?

Now sign and date this example and tuck it away so you can look at it when you feel your life gets crazy. Try this several times!

Being the Change

GratefulForTagTake a moment and think about a change you’d like to see in the world.  Then, reflect on the ways that YOU can be the change you want to make in the world.  Create your journal entry while thinking of the ways that you positively impact the lives of the people in your immediate circles, as well as ways that you could continue to cultivate those connections.  Feel a sense of gratitude for your ability to change your environment just by being who you are!

Spinning on the edge of Spring–Karen

Expand Your Creativity

For your micro entry today, express yourself with a new media. For example:

downsized_0417151158* If you are mostly writing your entries, try adding some art or doodles.
* If you are more comfortable with art, try adding some straight journaling.
* If you are writing prose, try poetry.

Open wide to see what comes forth when you give yourself a little bit of room to play!

~from the playroom, Karen

In case you missed the micro journal

Directions for folding journal   micro Journal

Art is part of prosperity–make something, move something

downsized_0417151356For your micro journal today, reflect on some kind of art that inspired you today.  It could be…

* a piece of music

* a work of visual art

* the dance or movement of a person

* a poem or piece of writing

* a piece of YOUR OWN creative work

* make your own magic!

Didn’t get the micro-journal? Here it is again.

Directions for folding journal   micro Journal

Fast Mood Change

bunnyHere is a simple tool that is the fastest way I know to change your mood. As you go about your life today, make a conscious effort to see the best in people and to send them a private blessing. Friends and strangers…those you interact with and those just walking across the parking lot. If you are sending out “good vibes” to people all day long, it’s virtually impossible to feel anything but GREAT. And hey, feeling great is what abundance is all about!

15 Minute Knee Prosperity Walks April 15

downsized_0415150845a

Arriving at Lund’s with the Sun, glorious Sun!

downsized_0415151114

Beth Desotelle is thinking about the value of post-it notes for flexible planning

Prosperity is everywhere in life. Just having that expectation leads to the unexpected! Most Wednesdays, I have at least two events or appointment that I need to be at. This Wednesday morning, I was at Lund’s Uptown before 9 am for the Rich Chicks’ NW2 Mastermind Group meeting.  For the next few sessions, we will be looking at and experimenting with creativity tools.  Part of today’s prosperity was teaching part of what I know about creativity to others. What I get back from teaching seeing how it adds to other’s prosperity.  Knowledge is power.

downsized_0415151113

Kate Minor and Trena Bolden Fields

 

 

Evening was Gray Market Income, class six–final brainstorming and graduation party! It is so gratifying to see the amazing development of  strong creative women.  The room wass too small for the big ideas!

grad2

The Mickey Mikeworth Galaxy of stars!

 

grad4

We are SO proud of our graduates. Congratulations to Ashlee Olds, Beth Desotelle, Colette DeHarpporte, Donna McKirdy, Elizabeth Ramos, Heidi Pliam, Jaci Salley, Judy Malmon, Jan Hoistad, Jeannine Pohl, Katherine Minor, Sara Nachreiner, Tanya Hagre, Nicole Urbach, Tracy Gorman, Danni Dickson

 

 

 

At the Library

The really fun things about timed writing are that you don’t have to finish it and it doesn’t have to make sense. Freedom!

The prompt for this flash fiction? At the Library

The library was not open late due to budget cuts, and Jerry dashed in to quickly get a book he needed for his paper. Due tomorrow, of course. “Damn,” thought Jerry, looking again at the scrap of paper in his hand. “It shouldn’t be this hard to find a book, when you have the call numbers.” He had located the bookcase with the correct  numbering prefix, but it ended before his number.

The librarian floated by quietly “ Five minutes,” she said. Jerry turned to ask about the missing numbers but she was already gone. It was then he noticed a tall bookcase against the wall. It had no numbers on it, and he felt a chill when he stepped over to it. It was darker over here, and he had to look closely at the books on an eye level shelf to see the numbers on the book binding.

Wow. It was his number and title. In fact all the books that he could see were that same title and number.  “Creepy. Well, I only need one,” he thought as he tried to pull out a book. It didn’t budge. He tried another and another. “This is crazy, what is going on here?” he thought as he pulled on the last book in the row. The whole case turned inward like a door. He moved quickly to get out of the way, and stood where the bookcase had been. He could see a long tunnel, he smelled coffee, heard laughter, voices and music. He stared down the glowing tunnel. “What the heck is this? Where is this?”

Curious, he took a few steps into the tunnel. He knew he should go back, and turned around just in time to see the door close. He stood still for a moment, more curious than frightened. Things like this just never happened to him. Then he headed for the light he saw at the end of the tunnel.

So–is there a light at the end of your tunnel? Is there coffee and music? Maybe a little Malbec?

Creative Spirit

My company, Rich Chicks™ is about finding richness in all areas of one’s life: body, mind, spirit and finances. For me, the creative spirit is a big part in everything I do. I love to teach and I love to write, so I started a writer’s group in my building a few years ago. It is a small group that meets twice a month. The first meeting we write and the second one we read from any individual project we are working on. This blog piece is from one of the writing meetings. I create or find prompts the writers can choose from and we write straight through for 7 to 8 minutes on whatever their interpretation of the topic is. It is fun—that’s the point of this writing–to just start writing and keep writing until the timer dings. Do NOT stop for misspellings and don’t cross anything out. This helps keep your left-brain editor out of the picture.  The prompt for the flash fiction below was “On the night of the full moon.” 

The full moon was playing hide-and-seek with clouds—a perfect night for the little trick-and-treaters who had been ringing Doris’ front doorbell this evening. Ding dong—“Trick or treat, trick or treat.” Doris was just putting more candy in a large bowl, careful to leave the Snickers bag for last. They were her favorite.  

She opened the door to a little band of princesses, Batmen, vampires, pirates, wizards, and zombies, who were accompanied by her across-the-street neighbor Bob. They were red-cheeked and excited as they held out their bags to collect goodies. Doris was very generous, as they were probably the last bunch. “Thank you,” they all said in unison. She could hear them walking noisily down the street. She smiled to herself and headed for her bag of fun-size Snickers.  

etcolorwebShe had just unwrapped a Snicker and popped it in her mouth when the doorbell rang again. She was surprised to have such late tricksters, and went to the door with her big bowl. “Trick or treat,” said a very reedy, odd sounding voice. She opened the door and there stood a mint-green creature with pointy ears and a furry bluish body. The four eyes on its head wiggled around on stalk-like protrusions. She noticed the eyes were all different colors: orange, green, blue and purple.  

No question, she thought. Not an Earthling. “What planet are you from?” she asked pleasantly as she offered her candy bowl.  One of the eyes, the orange one, glowed and turned on its stalk to look up at her.  Doris was starting to feel uncomfortable…  (ding dong–the timer went off. Pen down.)

There are lots of places on the internet to find writing prompts, or you can just make them up. Even just opening the dictionary and randomly picking a word works! Writer’s Digest will email you a weekly prompt if you sign up for it. You can also collect conversation bits you hear (or overhear) in coffee shops or other places where people gather. A couple that I have heard and used are “You know it’s not his baby, right?” “We don’t have to tell her we are going, do we?” and “But mom will never believe that.” You would be surprised what you hear!  Got any favorite prompts or sources to share? Cheers, Karen