“Innovation” is a major buzzword in business. It’s all about finding new or better ways of doing things to improve processes and create more value. With the rapid growth of new technologies, economic instability and more competing pressures and priorities than ever before, innovation is now essential to business success.
But it’s not just business that can benefit from innovation. We can apply its concepts to our own lives to live and LOVE more, and better. This is particularly important as the same pressures mentioned above are so applicable to our own lives.
Innovation superstar and Director of the groundbreaking Danish institution MindLab, Christian Bason, has laid out the four key concepts needed for successful innovation; these being the 4 C’s of consciousness, capacity, co-creation and courage.
Consciousness
To best work on you, you need to know you. That is being aware of and acknowledging who you are, what you love, where you want to be and the areas you want/need to improve in order to live a balanced and wholesome life.
There are many things you can do to develop this relationship and inner-awareness with yourself. You may like to try:
~ Meditating: Try to practice meditation almost everyday to gain mental clarity and deep inner consciousness. I aim to do a minimum of 15 minutes of yoga each day. It works wonders.
~ Keeping a daily diary: Write down not only what you have done each day, but also how it made you feel and why it made you feel that way.
~ Making an inspiration board: This is a great way of identifying the things that lift your emotions and wellbeing. See a picture that makes you happy but you can’t pinpoint why? Pin it up on your board. One day your association with this picture will click, and this will be a day that you learn something new and very exciting about yourself.
Capacity
Do you allow yourself the capacity to focus on yourself and actively maintain your wellbeing? Reshuffle your life if you feel it is out of balance. This could be on a small or large scale; I personally just reshuffled mine in quite a big way by going part-time at work to provide time for my uni studies, and more importantly myself (to prevent complete insanity). A small scale way could be simply waking up five minutes earlier to lie in bed and say or write down your gratitudes and goals for the day.
As well as having time, ask yourself if you have other resources to improve your wellbeing. These could be the resources to:
~ Prevent any negative thoughts becoming ingrained in your mind: You could keep a box of affirmations, and pick one out every morning to boost your mindset for the day. Alternately, just pick one when you feel you really need that little boost.
~ Nourish yourself: Always have access to fresh and healthy produce. Nourishment plays an extremely important role in the wellbeing of the mind, body and even soul. Find a farmer’s market near you. Stock your fridge. Enjoy cooking with the produce (I usually spend my Sunday afternoons cooking nutritious meals for the week with the radio blaring and a glass of red). If you put love into your food, your food will put love into you.
~ Receive support: Those in your life are part of your journey. It’s simple – spend more time with those who make you happy and make sure you actively maintain these relationships. Decrease time spent with those who provide toxicity. This leads into the next C…
Co-creation
Those you spend time with inevitably effect your life – how happy you are, how you spend your time, the decisions you make, and so on. You should want to be at your happiest when around the people that you love. Make it contagious – it’s so fulfilling seeing smiles light up their faces – create this happiness with them, not just for them. This is something I’ll call COLLECTIVE LOVE. It embodies the idea that many people who love together is far more effective than just one person who loves alone. Create and develop the changes in your life that promote love, together. You could do this by:
~ Holding a self-love dinner party
~ Travelling together: For me, there’s no better way of finding out about myself and providing perspective on life than travelling. Sharing this literal journey with someone else can deliver even more intense lessons of discovery. It builds incredible bonds.
~ Always being there for one another: Support is key. News flash: You don’t have to make all your life choices on your own. NEVER think less of yourself by asking for help and guidance. Sometimes we need someone to hold our hand while we choose and walk down a certain path.
Courage
Improving ‘processes’ to lead the life you want to live is made so much easier when you truly believe that you can do it. Have the confidence that you WILL reach your full potential. If this is difficult, you could gain this courage by:
~ Thinking of your most challenging moments: Okay so you might be thinking “why would I think of something depressing if I want to be happy?”. Bear with me. When my self-confidence reaches its dismal lows, I think back to the biggest challenge I have ever undergone. Then I think of me now. “I survived and overcame that. If I can do that, I can do anything.” Sometimes all it takes is a little perspective to get our frame of mind where it should be.
~ Setting yourself small, achievable goals
~ Writing your ideal day: This is a great exercise I picked up from Life’s Shiny Pretty Things (fellow Perth girl, woo!). It involves writing all the details of your perfect day; “what it looks like, what it feels like, what it tastes like… [it] challenges if you were living it? No? Why not? Find your why and then your how will come.” Not only does it further assist you to identify more about what you want, but it also makes your dreams completely realistic. With so many thoughts processing through our minds each day, writing them down on pen and paper makes them totally official and totally alive.
Apply these four C’s to enhance the process of your life. Whether in business or not, by the end of it you could call yourself one successful Sista 😉
xxx
Self-love Sista' 