How mini breaks and Ponder time can improve your creativity, your problem solving, your mood and your energy.

It is counter intuitive.

We all at times feel that we do not have the time to take a break from our hectic lives.  This is actually the time when it is the most important.

In fact, daily rejuvenation done as a habit will improve your creativity, your decision making, your mood and your energy.

Taking a vacation is not rejuvenation!  

Although you may not "feel" like you have the time to take a break, you do.  Make the choice to support yourself.

Rejuvenation needs to happen often and in short spurts to keep your energy high. 

Taking mini breaks every 20 minutes has been shown to boost decision making, creativity, energy and mood.  Set a timer.  (on your phone, silly)

When it goes off try this:

• Close your eyes and give them a rest from looking at your screen;
• Stand up and gently bounce on your toes getting your lymphatic system flowing;
• If you...

If you have ever procrastinated on taking action towards a goal or had your motivation drop after being all excited about a new goal - this hack will help!

Mini goals help prevent procrastination, improve your motivation beyond the honeymoon phase of goal achievement and improve your self confidence!  Super Cool.  Check out the video to see how you can break down your goal into a mini goal.

Hint: The key to breaking your big goal down is to make it almost impossible to fail!

Ever choked?

It might have been going blank during an interview, an important exam, at a board meeting or an athletic event. 

Choking is performance way below your ability.

Why does this happen and how can we prevent it?

All choking stems from worry. Negative worry.

Whether you have an important test, an athletic event, a business meeting or presentation - all chocking comes from worrying about the negative consequences of a failure.  Which, oddly enough, creates performance well below our ability - hence a choke!

Studies have shown that although choking can happen in many different types of performance, how we prevent it in sports competition is different than in a test, a meeting, an interview or a presentation.

What happens when we choke?

Our negative thoughts and worries flood the area of our brain that also controls short term memory - our prefrontal cortex.  When our prefrontal cortex is flooded with thoughts of worry, our ability to access our short term memory...

When we are working towards mastery we make mistakes. In order to learn a new skill and improve we have to get uncomfortable i.e. out of our comfort zones.

As we learn and things don't as we would like, Olympic gold medalist, Lanny Bassham says we should only have three answers to the question, "How did it go?".

1.  Awesome

2. Okay

3.  This is where it gets tricky!  The negative voice wants to yell that you sucked!  But that isn't helpful.  Instead, respond, "Needs Work".

You gotta love that!

Now, the key here is if you answered with Okay or Needs work - then what?  Endless and mind numbing recreation of the mistake in your mind?  NO!  All that does is reinforces the mistake or the way you do not want to perform!  

Instead, visualize exactly how you want to perform.  Now that increases the neural path of how you want to perform.  That mental visualization will  create the foundation for the actual performance.

Super...

What if you could do one thing every day and change the world?  And it would change you too.  

Kindness.

So simple.  So easy.  So POWERFUL.

How will you change the world with your kindness today?

If you have ever had a problem occupy your mind so that it negatively effected your other work, your sleep, your stress and mood - check out this simply yet hugely effective way to change your focus and get your mind monkey focused on what you want to focus on.  

BTW ... RAS = Reticular Activating System :)

I would love to hear what you think.  Let me know how this cool tool works for you.

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Who couldn't add to their level of Happiness, right?

The Heart Math device I showed in the video is called "Inner Balance" and the cord can be purchased from Heart Math Here and the App on Apple is Free. The Heart Math website contains a wealth of knowledge about Heart math. Information about  heart and the head communication start here.

Just to be clear, I DO NOT have an affiliate relationship with this company. I am simply sharing something I use and love in the spirit of bumping up the world's Happiness. Any other questions, shoot me an email [email protected], I would love to hear from you.

If you have ever struggled with keeping or achieving a goal that you really wanted to reach – you need to WOOP it!  J

WOOP is a goal setting process created by Dr. Gabriele Oettingen and it is AWESOME!

WOOP stands for:

W = Wish or Goal

When you choose a goal, studies show that if it meets or aligns with these 6 factors you have a much greater chance of success:

• Time frame – choose one that is reachable and challenging
• Control – It is okay to have a goal that doesn’t put the ability to reach it in your full control (think learning to meditate, lower stress, eat healthy, move more etc.) but consider reframing it so that you so have control.  A promotion at work involves things outside your control. And how can you create a series of goals around preparing yourself to be an attractive promotional candidate?
• Approach Goal – science shows that we achieve more and enjoy the process more if our goals are towards something (i.e. approach) rather than...

For an amazing start to your day try this coffee recipe!

This coffee is made with healthy fats - YUM! Want more information about eating healthy fats and how they can be used to help you lose weight, feel amazing and feed your brain!

Here is a link to the BulletProof Diet Book , Mark Sisson's Primal Blueprint and Dr. Mark Hyman's Eat Fat Get Thin. They all provide great information on using healthy fats to boost energy.

Kerry Gold Butter is sold at Trader Joe's and Whole foods markets.

How to Imbibe Intelligently and have more FUN!