Getting creative...

This morning both my husband and I woke up at 5.30 (well, I probably woke him if I'm really honest). We had a lovely chat and he decided he'd get up and start the day and I decided I'd stay in bed and think about what I was going to write about creativity (last week's workshop) in this, my blog.

What happened... I dropped off to sleep. Not that I got bored thinking about creativity or anything like that - it's my pet subject - but I was tired and, although my mind was engaged in an interesting 'does it have to be original?' internal discussion, my body had other ideas.

I woke up with my alarm a few hours later and have had the most creative of mornings.

My number one hint about creativity is sleep. Although it's romantic thinking of great ideas in the early hours of the morning it really only works if you can have a lie-in the next day. Creativity comes easiest with an awake mind.

My number two hint is stop worrying about whether or not you're being or feeling creative. The moment you start relaxing and taking care of yourself the creativity will come.

My number three hint is forget being original. Even Marie Antoinette noted that there weren't many original thoughts still to be had. Just be yourself.

It's Friday and the postman has just delivered all the photos I ordered last weekend - now for a creative treat...

Next week's Life Clubs workshop is all about stress and worries. We explore how to solve them so you can leave the workshop feeling lighter. See you there - come burdened!

Hope you have a great weekend,
Nina

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What motivates you?

Staring at the hopscotch board is a metaphor for what's going on in our lives.

Sometimes we're afraid of just taking that risk - of getting onto the first square. It's new... it's out of our comfort zone... it's scary.

But sometimes we're afraid of the routine of being on that hopscotch board. We can worry that once we're on it, there's no getting off. That our lives will be filled with monotony, drudgery, tedium.

I fit into the latter category. I love jumping on hopscotch boards and starting new things, but keep me doing the same thing for longer than a few minutes and I'm feeling bored.

So, how do I (or how will you) get motivated - either to start playing hopscotch or to carry on with the game?

This week at Life Clubs we found our motivational tools.

There are many ways of doing that and each of them brings up different results, but try this one now.

Think of all the things you've done since childhood, whether it's fishing or being friends with your best friend. Then work out what's made it so easy for you to keep doing those things.

You can apply the tools you find to each area of your life.

Two of my motivational tools are fun and freedom. If I've got to do something I don't want to I make it fun:
...I play some music
...I do it in twenty minute chunks
...I use different coloured pens... and so on

Find your motivational tools and use them to move you forward... and keep you going.

Next week at Life Clubs we're going to be discovering our creativity. I can't wait!

Hope you all have a wonderful week,
Nina
PS Do check out our new my best thing today.com website. It's getting 500 hits a day. Please send us a postcard.
PPS Visit us on facebook.

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Close that computer!!!

This could well be our kitchen table - only it's not quite that big.

We have almost got a computer each now and instead of talking we all sit there with our laptops hammering away and chuckling to ourselves.

Just occasionally one of my children will say to another 'Come and watch this film on youtube', but they might not even bother getting up and going over to watch it together - they might just send each other the link.

We're in our own little worlds. Not literally in the garden shed/garage pottering away (as our parents might have been), but isolated from whatever is happening in the real world. My six open desktop windows are my world and different from each of their open windows.

This week's workshop was on listening and it made me conscious of how isolated we all are. I made a determined effort to talk to people away from my computer - to clear the screen when I was on the phone (instead of multi-tasking) and even got quite cross with my poor husband when he tried to talk to me with his laptop open.

Conversation is not yet dead. Or at least I hope not.

I'm going to stop writing this now and go and have a conversation. I suggest you stop reading it too!

Hope you have a great week,
Nina
Founder Life Clubs

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What's the best thing that's happened today?

This week's workshop was about mirroring and how what you notice about others is all a part of you too.

An easy way to demonstrate is by looking at our mybestthingtoday.com website. I look down the postcards and each one makes me smile. Some with a feeling of recognition... waking up back home is definitely the best thing about today (that's just how I felt coming home from France after five weeks) and some just with a how lovely for them kind of feeling... having drinks out of jam jars at a vintage cocktail bar with my best friend (oh yeah!).

Their happiness is changing my mood. I'm becoming a mirror of their joy. And that feels great.

Thanks to all who have so far shared their best thing with us and thanks to all of you who'll do so in the future.

Hope you all have a great weekend,
Nina
PS Do buy The Times tomorrow. I've got an article in it about improving children's confidence (all ages covered).

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How Can I Change?

It's been a bit of a rough week. Someone who has worked very closely with me for the last ten months is leaving. I always knew he would, but it has happened almost from one day to the next, and, though I'm delighted for him, I'm sad for me. I'll miss him and the role he established for himself within Life Clubs.

When he first told me I just felt sorry for myself. I wanted to curl up and lick my wounds. It means stepping up enormously and both Tommy (11-year old son) and I have been feeling ill in one way or another since we returned from France. All I felt was overwhelmed by what I have to do, taking on both of our roles (at least for the time being) just seemed an enormous task.

And yet I knew I had to change so that I could make everything I want to happen, happen.

I always find when you know something has to be different that you need outside help in some way and, thankfully, I fell on my feet. My good friend, Annie Lionnet, (Frome Life Clubs Host, best-selling author and astrologer) was staying with me when I heard the news.

Now, you may not believe in astrology, but at the risk of sounding like Nancy Reagan, let me tell you how Annie helped.

She looked at my chart and said that although she could see that although everything was changing around me, I was changing too and that, at least for the next month, I was going to be overwhelmingly energetic. What a wonderful thing to hear - and at just the right time.

That's why I love astrology. Call it the placebo effect or call it science, I don't care. Suddenly I'm buzzing. I know I can take on the world. Just being told that I'm going to be more energetic, I instantly feel better, more focused and very dynamic.

I'm jumping and the water isn't as cold as I thought it was going to be.

This week's workshop (as you probably gathered) was all about change.

Next week at Life Clubs is one of my favourite workshops - a great trick to help you boost your confidence every time you admire someone else. We call it Mirror, Mirror.

If you haven't already bought my new book, please do so. How To Get What You Want, is a terrific present for anyone about to leave school, college or university - and grab a look of it before you give it away.

Hope you have a wonderful week.
My best wishes,
Nina

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Build in surprises

This week at Life Clubs we were thinking about our homes and how they can restrict us and expand us.

Home is very relevant to me right now because my 23 year old son is about to leave our home, I suppose for good.

It's not the empty nest syndrome, because as you probably know I have three more gorgeous children, but I'm going to miss him enormously. He's very special and (I think) we get on really well, plus I've lived with him for over a third of my life so he's an important part of it. All in all, it's very sad and I've been trying to spend as much time as I can with him. Michael likes to come home from work and flop, so spending time has involved watching TV with him - something I rarely do. One of the programmes we watched this week was Grand Designs.

I was very impressed. There was this stunning thirty year old interior designer doing what I've always wanted to do, namely build herself a lovely house in Cornwall near her mum. She looked as if she was having a great time in the mud and rain (and sun) watching her dream take shape, but by the end of the programme I realised it wouldn't be my dream home - it was just too predictable.

In my time I've built walls and moved rooms around and I know I like to build in surprises. My wall has a little stone fountain built into it and my rooms have hide and seek passages through the wardrobes from one room into another. I like to feel magic and the possibility that anything can happen.

Having discovered that, I'm going to think more positively about my son leaving. I'm going to keep open the fact that he might come through the front door on the odd evening and surprise us or even that I might go and stay the weekend with him.

How have you coped with children leaving home? Any tips?

Next week's workshop is all about change. Now that feels pretty relevant too.

All best wishes,
Nina
PS Talking about children leaving home - if you have one, do buy them a copy of my book How To Get What You Want. A perfect leaving home present.

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Finding Your Talents

Both this week's workshop and my talk at The Cheltenham Festival were about finding your talents. The children (and some of the grown-ups too!) who came to The Festival workshop were brilliant - they knew they were talented at sport or being a leader or being creative, but those in my Westminster Life Club were much more dubious.

I don't know about you but I could tell you exactly how brilliant everyone I know is and what they can do really well, but when I used to think about myself I didn't know what made me special.

It was the same in my club. Although my clubbers had written down that they loved adventure and creative writing and all sorts of other things, they just couldn't believe that that meant they were talented in those fields - and yet I believe it does.

Malcolm Gladwell in his book, Outliers, puts forward a very strong case for needing 10,000 hours of practice in order to be really good at something, and I would agree - talents don't come overnight - but each clubber had identified their passions and it's those passions that make you unique and can be turned into talents with just a bit (10,000 hours!) of practise.

One of my passions is colour. When I was a small child I used to ask to be taken to the local department store so I could admire the carpets displayed so stunningly (just look at those reds!). As I got older my favourite present was always colouring pencils and now we call rooms in my home after the colours they're painted (the purple room... the red room... and so on). Just look at the Life Clubs logo - that too shows my love of colour.

You may not call colour a 'talent' of mine, but that's really just semantics. All I know is that without colour I feel bereft.

What are your 'talents'? Or, if you prefer, the things without which you feel bereft? Don't be modest!

Hope you have a great weekend,
Nina
PS I was at The Cheltenham Festival to celebrate the publication of my book, How To Get What You Want. Do have a look at a copy - it's fun.

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