Importance Of Colours

Color plays a vitally important role in the world in which we live. Color can sway thinking, change actions, and cause reactions. It can irritate or soothe your eyes, raise your blood pressure or suppress your appetite.

Many people think that colour is just a matter of how things look and it is often dismissed as being purely cosmetic. However, the truth is that colour is light - the source of life itself; there is nowhere that colour does not exist and our instinctive, unconscious response to it is a vital element in our survival.

It is Nature's own powerful signalling system. Scientifically, it is the first thing we register when we are assessing anything: a very simple and obvious example of that is our reaction to a fly in our home: if it is black, we will probably find it a minor irritation, but if it has yellow stripes our reaction will be different - most of us will recoil. The same instinct tells us when food is unsafe to eat and throughout the animal kingdom colour is widely used to signal sexual availability.

When used in the right ways, color can save on energy consumption. When used in the wrong ways, color can contribute to global pollution.

As a powerful form of communication, color is irreplaceable. Red means "stop" and green means "go." Traffic lights send this universal message. Likewise, the colors used for a product, web site, business card, or logo cause powerful reactions.

On a wider level, the colours of our environment affect our behaviour and mood. When yellow daffodils, bluebells and colourful crocuses appear, we immediately begin to feel livelier; when grey skies and rain or snow surround us we instinctively draw in and tend to hibernate.

In today's sophisticated world it is easy to underestimate the power of primitive instincts, as they are largely unconscious. Today we might be contemplating a packet of corn flakes or a new cold cure, rather than a primitive meal or a curative herb, but exactly the same instincts come powerfully into play. The colours of the interior environment wherein we live or work affects us in just the same way as those in the natural world always did. The colours that people wear still send out clear signals that we can all read accurately.

Science has always recognised the link between colour and mood/behaviour and there is a large body of scientific research into it. However, no one has written a monograph on the subject for over thirty years and one reason for this might be that results are so often inconclusive. It is not normally part of a psychologist's remit to study the finer points of colour harmony so colours are defined as, for example, "blue and orange" or "red and green" without much consideration of the subtleties of shade and tone.

Everyone agrees that response to colour is subjective and assumes that it must therefore be unpredictable.

Not so.

Response is subjective but, when the study of colour harmony is combined with the science of psychology, reactions can be predicted with startling accuracy. There is no such thing as a universally attractive colour. Red, for example, might be your favourite colour but another person might hate it. You see it as exciting, friendly and stimulating, he sees it as aggressive and demanding. Blue might be perceived as calm and soothing - or as cold and unfriendly. It is the combination of colours that triggers the response.

The key factor that Angela Wright recognised in studying colour psychology was that, equally, there are no wrong colours; we do not respond to just one colour, but to colours in combination. You could have a grey sky on a summer day, but our reaction to that grey with the vivid colours of the summer landscape would be different from the combination of a grey sky with snow white. Even the winter landscape contains many colours.

In many ways, colour and music work the same way. As jazz pianist Thelonius Monk observed: "There are no wrong notes".

It is important to understand that there is a great difference between colour psychology and colour symbolism. Historically, what is often described as colour psychology is actually colour symbolism - the conscious associations that we are conditioned to make. For example, cultural responses to colour derive from a variety of causes: green is the sacred colour throughout Islam, being the colour of the Prophet's robe; in England it is considered unlucky, probably because of its association with decay and disease; in Ireland it is considered lucky, perhaps because when the world about us contains plenty of green this indicates the presence of water and therefore little danger of famine. There are many examples of colour symbolism: purple is associated with royalty for the simple reason that, until relatively recently, it was an extremely expensive dye and only royalty could afford it; red is the colour of blood and has associations with war.

These associations often coincide with colour psychology (red actually can trigger aggression) but they are by no means the same thing.

The key to successfully applied colour psychology is the recognition of tonal families of colour and how they relate to personality types. All the millions of shades, tones and tints can be classified into just four tonal families and great minds throughout history have also repeatedly classified humanity into four types, from Galen in early Rome (predominant bodily fluids defining a person as Choleric, Melancholic, Sanguine or Phlegmatic) to Jung in the twentieth century (determining function being predominantly Thought, Feeling, Intuition or Sensation).

When Angela Wright made the connection between these two, she was able to create, for the first time, a colour psychology system that works. It enables response to be accurately predicted; it enables creation of colour combinations that will be universally attractive. She has developed it for use in a variety of applications.

History Of Colours

Over more than two thousand years, there has been, and continues to be, a wealth of wonderful work contributing to our understanding of colour.

There has never been a time when colour did not fascinate humanity and it has always been regarded as one of life's greatest mysteries. Every civilisation had (and still has today) its myths and associations with colour, but oddly, none of them has named many colours. In the 1960s anthropologists Berlin and Kay conducted a worldwide study of colour naming. Many languages only contained two colour terms, equivalent to white (light) and black (dark). Of 98 languages studied, the highest number of basic colour terms was to be found in English - where we have eleven: black, white, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink, grey and brown. The other millions of colours have 'borrowed' names, based on examples of them, such as avocado, grape, peach, tan, gold, etc.

The great philosopher, Aristotle, in the fourth century BC, considered blue and yellow to be the true primary colours, relating as they do to life's polarities: sun and moon, male and female, stimulus and sedation, expansion and contraction, out and in. Furthermore, he associated colours with the four elements: fire, water, earth and air. Artists universally adopted his principles and applied them for two thousand years, until Newton's discoveries in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries replaced them in general colour theory.

Hippocrates, the father of medical practice, was a contemporary of Aristotle (who apparently did not have a very high opinion of him). He used colour extensively in medicine and recognised, for example, that the therapeutic effects of a white violet would be quite different from those of a purple (violet) one. Another medical man, Avicenna in the eleventh century, in what is now Iran, believed that a person's physical colouring would indicate that person's predisposition to various diseases and always took account of the patient's colouring in diagnosis.

In the fifteenth century the famous Swiss doctor, von Hohenheim, known as Paracelsus, travelled extensively and his methods were considered highly controversial - he received more attention at the time than Copernicus. He placed particular importance on the role of colour in healing. Interestingly, he was a contemporary of not just Copernicus, but Martin Luther, Leonardo da Vinci and many other famous figures of the Renaissance - so his life and learning were conducted in an atmosphere of great transition in thought.

The greatest contributions to our understanding of colour came from men whose work combined science and mathematics with art, metaphysics and theology - indeed the sum of human study. However, in the fifteenth century, with the arrival of humanist thinking, and Martin Luther, there was tremendous intellectual upheaval. The Church lost its grip on education and many disciplines 'went their own way' - leading to the virtual separation of art from science. Further study of colour appears to have been placed in the 'Science' camp. Artists were deemed to be born with an instinct for it.

In 1672, the great scientist, Sir Isaac Newton, published his first, controversial paper on colour, and forty years later, his work 'Opticks'. When Newton shone white light through a triangular prism, he found that wavelengths of light refracted at different angles, enabling him to see the separate components - colours. (He was able to shine them back through a prism and achieve white light again, but unable to see any further breakdown if he shone a single colour through a prism.)

One of the history's greatest minds was that of Johannes Wolfgang von Goethe - who completely disagreed with Newton's interpretations of his own findings. Goethe's 'Theory of Colours', (translated into English in 1840 and still in print) disputes that Newton's prism experiments proved that light splits into its component colours. He felt that if Newton was right, then white light should split under all kinds of circumstances but when he himself shone white light on to a screen in a room, he found that the centre of the image remained white and colours appeared only at the edges. This led him back to Aristotle's ideas; blue is the first colour to appear out of darkness (and most visible at night) and yellow is the first colour to appear out of light (and the most visible colour in light conditions). Hence, for example, our perception of the sun, where we are effectively looking at white light, as yellow and the sky, where we are looking into the vast blackness of space, as blue.

For almost three hundred years after Newton, all further work with colour was essentially concerned with appearance and vision - and most of it strictly scientific. By the latter part of the nineteenth century, the medical community had virtually put paid to the age-old practice of colour therapy, dismissing it as 'mumbo-jumbo'.

However, there was one shining example of scientific study leading to great strides in art - the work of Chevreul, the nineteenth century French chemist who, in studying the chemistry of dyeing, developed a colour system that became the heart of pointillism and neo-impressionism. Artists such as Seurat and Signac only ever used Chevreul's fundamental palette of colours.

In the twentieth century, however, interest in colour exploded. The art of colour therapy was re-born and today even the most mainstream doctors use colour as an everyday part of their work.

In the 1920s at the famous Bauhaus school, in Germany, where the teaching staff included such luminaries as Itten, Albers, Kandinsky, Mondrian and Klee, technology and art were completely reunited. Johannes Itten was particularly interested in the connections between colours and emotions, and colours and shapes. He also observed that each of his students seemed to favour the same palette for their work - and furthermore, the favoured palette appeared to be in some way related to that student's own physical colouring. Itten's seminal book 'The Art of Colour' is a 'must read' for anyone interested in colour.

Nevertheless, when Angela Wright began to pursue deeper understanding of the effects of colour, in the mid 1970s, she found that not much progress had been made since the 1920s. There was no shortage of scientific material describing experiments to establish the psychological effects of different colours. However, the findings were often contradictory and no firm theories had emerged, so it was considered totally subjective, and therefore totally unpredictable.

Her first response to this was that none of these experiments appeared to take account of the finer points of colour - nuances of shade, tone and tint. It is not part of a psychologist's remit to study colour, so they would, for example, describe experiments where they had 'used blue and orange, with full spectrum lighting.' She felt that this was relatively meaningless, as there are at least a million blues and just as many oranges. She felt that colour harmony was a major determining factor in the psychological effect. In simple terms, disharmony negates.

She studied the dynamics of colour harmony in California, working with Mrs Lorea Shearing, a member of the Kalmus family, who invented and developed Technicolor. She formed a clear hypothesis, involving the links between patterns of colour and personality types, that approached colour harmony from a different perspective. Going back to Aristotle's idea that blue and yellow were the true primary colours, she classified all colours, first into cool and warm, then subdivided in terms of levels of intensity and the addition of black, white or grey. This produced four tonal families, which Angela Wright then associated with four personality types, defined with considerable reference to Jung's psychology theories, particularly the concept of extraversion (yellow) and introversion (blue). She developed a clear, rational colour system - the Colour Affects System - enabling individual response to specific colour combinations to be predicted with startling accuracy, and colour psychology to be practised with much more precision and understanding.

In the last two years the Colour & Imaging Institute, at Derby University in England, have confirmed that the colours classified within the Colour Affects System do indeed have mathematical relationships not previously identified.

The work continues.

Colour Perception And Illusion

A colour illusion takes place when the colour we see gives information which, if tested otherwise than by vision, would be found to be misleading or confusing or even meaningless. An illusion is also set to occur when colour changes for no reason immediately apparent to the observer. A colour illusion causes us, for the moment at least, to be deceived by what we see; but the extent to which we are deceived depends on the extent of our knowledge and experience. What is an illusion for one person may not be for another.

Colour is a sensation in the brain and exists only when there's someone present to experience the sensation; and since it is usually caused by the reflection of light waves from surfaces onto the eye it changes with every change of light or surface. Colours become bluer, yellower, darker or lighter according to whether, for example, they are seen in open daylight, in artificial light, in twilight or in sunlight, and they are hardly ever exactly the same for any length of time.

Constancy

The brain achieves an extraordinary feat when it gives a consistant and uniform appearance to the things we see in so many different lights and contexts. The brain's faculty for giving continuous order to the mass of unassimilated data that it is presented with by the senses is called constancy.

The brain's attempt to recognize beneath the changing conditions of the outside world, certain surface qualities that are relatively constant can be described as colour constancy. It's success depends upon stored experience and the evidence not only of sight but also of our other senses.

Illusion is, physiologically speaking, a glimpse behind the scenes at unassimilated sense data which has not, as it where, been put into proper perspective by constancy.

Colours often appear to change when placed one against another. Many people will see the two squares here as one bluish and the other yellowish. They are, in fact, exactly the same colour. This has been an illusory change in Hue.

Illusory change in Lightness

The colour in the centre square appears darker on the light surface and lighter on the dark surface. This has been a change in Lightness or Tone Value.

Illusory change in Saturation

A colour of low saturation, or colour intensity as it is sometimes called, placed on a surface colour of even lower saturation, tends to look more saturation than it is. The same colour placed on a surface of higher saturation in colour will appear to be less saturated than it is. The classic work on the subject is that of Michel Eugene Chevreul, chemist and director of the Goblin Tapestry works. Colours appeared to change when woven into their tapestry and Chevreul wrote on what he called the Law of Simultaneous Contrast. CHEVREUL, M.E., (1839) De la Loi du Contraste Simultané des Couleurs. Paris. This was a proufound influence upon the Impressionists. It was not translated into English until 1854. (Martel's Principles of Harmony and Contrast of Colours.) The finest examples of colour illusions, however, are those in The Interaction of Colours by Josef Albers of the Bauhaus and Yale University.

Change of apparent size

Some colours appear to change the size of the shape they are in. Here, the yellow square appears larger than the blue square, although they are both the same size. This is because Yellow has a lot of white in it, so that it is received on the retina of the eye by three different receptors, the red receptor cones and the green receptor cones.

Landscape

In this landscape, the eye sees the fields in the foreground as green and the hills in the distance as blue, but no one supposes that the grass on the hills is in fact blue. We take it for granted that if we'd climbed the hills we would find them to be green, and we are well aware that a particular quality of the grass, that of greenness, is constant. The faculty of the brain to discern the constancy of things in relation to changing conditions allows us to remain undisturbed by the many colour illusions which meet the eye. The blueness of the grass on the hills is not an illusion to the average person. One is not deceived by it. It has been learnt from experience that distance often makes things appear bluer.

Simultaneous contrast

Colours can appear to change by placing them against different colours. A colour will look less colourful if placed against a more colourful hue. This is an illusion of saturation. Another colour will look darker on a light surface, and lighter on a dark surface. This is an illusion of tone value. Yet again, a colour placed on a warmer suface will look colder than it is normally, and warmer on a colder colour. These are illusions of hue.

Metamerism

Daylight	Tungsten

Two samples of textiles that match under one light but not under another one called a matameric pair

The colour of a fabric can match that of another under one light but not under another. On the left are two green samples seen under daylight. On the right the same two samples are completely different under another light such as tungsten. This illusion can cost a client a lot of money if the colours haven't been checked under both lights. This is because the two samples are from different batches of the 'same colour' dyed with completely different chemicals.

After-Image

Union Jack by After-Image

Here is another flag that changes by after-image. Look at this for twenty seconds without moving your head or shifting your eyes, then look at the grey square next to it and the unknown flag becomes the Union Jack!

Desire Or Fear Motivation

Desire: the starting point of all achievement. ~ Napoleon Hill, Think And Grow Rich

What Motivate You - Desire Or Fear?

The energy of desire is a powerful motivator and creative force. Yet we must state our desires clearly with the rewards of success in mind.

One of my recent clients had spent six years in a job where he felt unappreciated. Although he had the skills and experience to take other work, he was having trouble leaving his current position. While expressing his frustration, he kept saying, "I can't stand this job!"

Desire and the energy it creates affect our intentions and actions. However, it is important to distinguish between desire motivation and fear motivation. We are either moving toward something we want, or, as my client was, away from something we do not want.

Fear motivation aims to protect and focuses on avoiding penalties for failure. It leads to feelings of inhibition (e.g., "I can't") or compulsion (e.g., "I have to."). Desire motivation seeks rewards for success. It leads to volition (e.g., "I can.") and propulsion (e.g., "I want to.").

Not initially knowing where he would go next, my client was moving "from" an undesired position, mistakenly motivated by penalties for perceived failure. Of course, he had not failed; his job had failed him. The way we express our feelings will shape our beliefs, intentions, and actions, often without our awareness.

My client's initial affirmation, "I can't stand this job," was working to keep him there. The mind is unable to focus on the reverse of an idea. It will delete a negative such as "can't" and move directly to its dominant thought. What he had actually affirmed with strong emotion was, "I stand this job!"

Filled with energetic dislike for his job, he had not only been affirming that he would continue to "stand" his job. He had also intensified his unwanted staying power by mixing strong negative emotion with his words.

He went on to identify the position and job he wanted. Then he began to create statements focusing on rewards for moving to a satisfying and fulfilling position. Within two months, he had acquired a satisfying position with a new company, and, to his delight, an employer who regularly compliments him on his work.

Clearly focus on your desires each day. Ask yourself, "What do I want, exactly?" "What am I moving toward?" Allow your thoughts and words to move you toward your desires with faith in your God-given talents and potential.

Remember that most successful achievers focus on the rewards of success. Think of one of your strongest desires and imagine what its attainment will make possible for you. The deepest desires of your heart will produce the energy to carry you forward to success. May the rewards of every success that you desire be yours!

Steve is a professional life success coach, motivational author, and the editor of Achieve! 60-Second Nuggets of Inspiration, a popular mini-zine bringing great stories, motivational nuggets, and inspiring thoughts to help you achieve more in your career and personal life.

Success Motivational Tools

If you can dream it, you can do it. ~ Walt Disney

No matter how many years you spend in a classroom or from what social class or lifestyle, motivation is the common factor among those who are high achievers.

Finding the tools to put meaning and purpose in your life,developing a vision, and becoming highly motivated can lead you towards a successful and exciting life.

Here are 12 motivational tools that can bring you success:

12 Powerful Motivational Tools That Guarantee Success

1. Recognizing obstacles and learning to remove them can make your vision a reality. The individual who is extremely motivated and successful has been motivated by a vision.

2. The quest for freedom is the basis for motivation. Total freedom is not necessarily desirable or possible, but the pursuit of that ideal is what motivates us to succeed.

3. People who develop a vision control their own life and destiny. With no vision, your life and destiny are controlled by outside forces.

You must change your thinking habits in order to change your life, and you change your habits by keeping the desired results in sight.

4. Develop a major goal, but take a specified path to get there. You'll have many smaller goals to reach before you get to the final result.

By learning to accomplish these smaller goals, you'll be motivated to take on the larger challenges.

5. Get into the habit of finishing what you start. An unfinished project is of no value. Leaving things unfinished is a habit that must be changed.

6. Find support through friends, acquaintances, and co-workers. If you surround yourself with motivated, visionary people you will naturally develop the attributes that helped them get that way.

Mutual interests and like-minded associates can be excellent motivational tools.

7. Another motivational tool is failure. Failure teaches us to keep trying until we get it right. No one ever became successful without prior failures.

Failure is a by-product of imagination and creativity. It challenges you to take risks and teaches you to keep trying until you get it right.

8. The fear of failure is a common factor among those who procrastinate. If you want to succeed in reaching your goals, you must be willing to take a risk and lose.

Many people trade joy, satisfaction, and fulfillment for a job that is considered conventional and safe.

9. The unfulfilling job is not the failure; not pursuing your dreams is the real failure. Developing a vision requires conquering your fears and finding motivation from within.

10. The power of your dreams is the primary factor in becoming motivated. Productivity will be the result ofdeveloping habits and attitudes that keep you on the right track.

11. By changing bad habits and focusing on your specific goals, motivation will come to you even when you wish you could quit and times are tough.

12. By identifying the behaviors that you need to change, developing a vision of what you would like to achieve, and striving to attain that goal, you will become a naturally motivated, highly efficient, productive person.

Do not let fear of failure stop you from having the freedomto choose the lifestyle and destiny you desire.

True motivation is not only a learned skill; it is developed due to a need or desire to make our dreams a reality.

If you want to find inner motivation, you must identify your goals and set out on an unwavering path to achieve them.

Overcoming procrastination is perhaps one of the most important steps you can take to improve your life and become the motivated, successful person you are capable of being.

You have to let go of your old personality and ways of doing things to change, quit procrastinating and get motivated!

Peter Murphy is a peak performance expert. He recently produced avery popular free report that reveals how to crush procrastination and sustain lasting motivation.

Ability, Motivation, and Attitude

By Chris Widener

"Ability is what you're capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it." Lou Holtz

There are three primary aspects of your life that will determine whether or not you are successful in your endeavors. You will not be successful if you have only one or two. You must have all three working together. Consider them like the three legs of a "stool of success."

Ability is the level at which you are able to actually do things. Your skill level. If you have a high level of skill, that's good. And the better you get, the better it will be for you. To the degree that you can perform your actions at higher and higher skill levels, the more and more success you will find in your chosen field.

Motivation is the level at which you are able to find "a reason to act". This is the internal drive that you find that enables you to exercise your abilities. To the degree that you can find a way, or ways, to keep yourself motivated, you will see yourself right in the thick of things, carrying out your actions to the best of your abilities and succeeding accordingly.

Attitude is the mental state that you have while carrying out your actions to the best of your ability. It is the way you view the world around you and choose to see it, either positively or negatively. To the degree that you can maintain a positive attitude about yourself, others, and the circumstances you find yourself in, you will see yourself achieving greater and greater things.

"But Chris, can't I get away with just two?"

No.

What if you have high skills and motivation but a rotten attitude? People will stay away and hinder your success. What if you have a good attitude and motivation but poor skills? People will like you, maybe even root for you, but go to someone else with the skills they need. What if you have great skills and attitude but no motivation? Well, you'll be sitting on the couch like a lazy slug while the go-getters are out there making your money and achieving your dreams!

No, it takes all three. So let's ask some questions: Ability: How highly skilled are you? Is your skill level holding you back? How so? What could you achieve if you just took your skills to the next level beyond where they are right now? How would improving your skills improve the bottom line of your success?

Motivation: How motivated are you? Why do you answer that way? What would your spouse or close friends say? Would they say you are as motivated as you say you are? Why or why not? Why do you have the level of motivation that you have? What could you do to find a higher level of motivation? What would happen if you became super motivated for the next period of your life. What great things would happen?

Attitude: Do you have a good attitude or a poor one? How would you rate yourself? What about when things go wrong? Are you more of an optimist or a pessimist? What would happen if you took your attitude to the next level for the next 60 days? What if you just chose to have an incredible attitude? What would be the ramifications?

"The world cares very little about what a man or woman knows; it is what a man or woman is able to do that counts." ~ Booker T. Washington

This is so true. People will judge you on what you accomplish, not what you know or what you talk about. In fact, if you know a lot or talk a lot but do not accomplish anything, people will wonder what happened. So the question is whether or not you will take the actions necessary to deliver on your potential. To do so, you will need to focus in on the three legs of the stool of success: Your ability, your motivation, and your attitude.Take some time this week to give some serious thought to these three areas. Your success depends on it! And when you have done some reflection ? put the conclusions you come to into action!

Chris Widener is a popular speaker and writer as well as the President of Made for Success, a company helping individuals and organizations turn their potential into performance, succeed in every area of their lives and achieve their dreams.

Basics Of Employee Motivation

To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people
And the affection of children;

To earn the appreciation of honest critics
And endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty,

To find the best in others;
To leave the world a little better;
Whether by a healthy child,

A garden patch or a redeemed social condition;
To know even one life has breathed easier

Because you have lived.

This is the meaning of success.

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Building a team of motivated people in your business is vital to get the very best results, but so many managers focus on the 'ra-ra-ra', rather than the important things - the things that make people feel comfortable in their working environment.

Here are eight that you might want to have a think about:

1. The Weather Is it too hot, or too cold. Your people need an environment which is, like Goldilocks said, 'Just right'. So is the office too stuffy in summer? Or too icy in winter? Is it draughty? Do people get wet when accepting deliveries, because the outside roof leaks? Literally make sure that external factors are as they wish.

2. The Breaks Sometimes working in a day-to-day job can get boring and exhausting. So people need to know when their breaks are and that they wil be able to take them - it's not that complicated. Yet often, they just aren't able to have this basic courtesy in place. Planning and caring for your people's needs is vital. It's what you would want for yourself, isn't it?

3. Holidays And vacations/holidays are important too - some would say it's the most important thing on the working year calendar. So enable this to happen, when they need to know, so that they can plan their invaluable time away from the business and refresh.

4. Being Heard You people need you to listen to then and hear them - really hear what they are saying and respond with action and/or acknowledgement. Be out there creating good, open relationships with your people and take in what they say - what's important to them - and deliver solutions to make conditions great.

5. Achievable Goals By being really, really clear about what you expect from your employees, you will set the scene for committed staff. Through knowing exactly what their performance should look like to be judged excellent, by you, gets buy-in, big-time. So be clear, give them the resources to achieve success and they will be well onside.

6. Being Thanked As they do a good job for you each day - tell them. It's easy - just say 'Thank You'! Appreciation for achieving success, especially when it's from the boss is so important. So recognising excellent performance, even for small tasks, cost nothing and takes but a moment - worth building into your day job activities - every day!

7. Challenge People like to do new things, to explore, to seek out and utilise their potential, Sometimes this means they will have to be 'stretched' in what they do. With a helping hand, to support, coach and grow the skills of your people, you are setting in place a keen, ambitious and ready-for-the-next-experience star in the making. So find new ways to develop them.

8. Security In today's business climate, it isn't always easy to build the best future consistently - things change too much, too quickly. But you can go some way to ensure that it is a safe place to be. With this level of security, your people will loosen up and feel capable of being with you, rather than against. It is a measure of your own leadership as to how well this works. These are basics for your people - get these right and you will be 85% there, in having motivated people working with you. Then you can turn on the charm, get radical and creative and find them right there alongside you (in front even!). Focused on building your business strongly.

Martin Haworth is a Business and Management Coach. He works worldwide, mainly by phone, with small business owners, managers and corporate leaders.

Ways To Stay Motivated At Work

To be truly motivated, one must make personal commitments. ~ William G. Dyer

By Peter Murphy

Staying motivated at work is easier than you think when you know what to do.

1. Decide What You Must Achieve Today.

It is easy to get caught up with non-urgent matters that you can either ignore completely or do at a later date.

All that clutter leaves you confused about what to do so you end up procrastinating.

You need to ask yourself:

What is of the utmost importance that I must complete today?

Define that specific goal and focus solely on that until you have achieved it.

Clarity is power. It allows you to operate in a peak state of concentration and will help to ensure you are at your best. You will be amazed at how much you will get done and how successful you will feel when you FOCUS.

2. Break Down Complex Goals Into Manageable Steps.

One of the biggest mistakes people make is the failure to take big projects and restructure them as a series of challenging but stimulating tasks.

Take any project and list the sequence of steps you need to follow. Make sure the steps are big enough to keep your interest and not so small that you feel bored by the prospect of moving ahead with the project.

It is very motivating to have a highly specific game plan that challenges you without leaving you overwhelmed.

Once you have this blueprint written down you can get started. And make sure to mark your progress with the time of completion as you work your way through the list.

Tracking the time encourages you to make a game of getting things done properly and quickly.

3. Use Negative Pressure To Keep You On Target.

This is an unusual but highly effective tip.

Pick someone at work to check in on your progress during the day. Make sure this person has a positive outlook and that he or she is fully supportive of your goal to achieve more. Choose someone you want to impress with your abilities and productivity.

The secret is to use negative pressure to keep you on track. i.e. you want to dread the prospect of failure because you do not want to lose the approval of this person.

You will have moments during the day when you feel good about the progress you are making. At this point the natural reaction is to ease up.

You can deal with this by setting up the very real prospect of disappointing someone who believes in you. This desire to avoid embarrassment will drive you to give of your best.

Use these three tips each day and watch your productivity soar.

Motivation really is a question of strategy. When you know your personal motivation blueprint there is nothing you cannot do.

Are You A Visionary

Dreams may seem unimportant in your quest for success. And it's true that ordinary dreams are often a mix of what happened during your day --plus some "wild" random associations.

But there's more than one kind of dream.

For example: Many ultra successful people use a process of "waking dreaming" to fuel their visionary powers.

What is a "waking dream?"

A waking dream often starts out as a daydream. But each time the dream is remembered, the brain cell networks associated with it are physically strengthened.

And if the dream is repeated enough, what started out as a daydream becomes a dominant vision.

The key word here is DOMINANT.

Overcoming Personal Doubt and Fear
You can bet that all successful people started out with their own collection of personal fears, doubts, and perceived limitations.

But as their dream was encoded into their brain cells through repetition, it gradually became more dominant than their fears and doubts.

Soon the neural network holding their dream was stable enough to totally override those old fears and doubts. This is NOT a "made-up" scenario. It's solidly based on modern neuroscience.

Scientists now use MRI technology to actually watch the brain create new neural connections while someone is focused on solving a problem or learning something new.

Think about that for a moment.

I saw these same results years ago during my computerized EEG brainwave and biofeedback research and clinical practice.

This is a powerful key to success. And it's been used by the world's ultra successful people since the beginning of time.

(((Repeated focus builds physical brain power.)))

Why does this work so effectively?

Because at some point in time, your repeated vision of your dream becomes a BRAIN-BASED INTENTION.

That's when the doors begin to open, the opportunities seem to drop into your lap, and your dream begins to take shape as a reality.

Enter Visionary Power
We are each endowed with visionary powers. When you take a few minutes to think about what you are going to do over the weekend, you're actually visualizing.

Here's the process: First, you consciously picture your possibilities using your imagination. Second, you make a choice of one possible option from among the many. Then all that remains is to take steps to create your choice in reality.

But most ultra successful people are highly achieved visionaries, and take this process a bit further.

To me, a "highly achieved visionary" is one who:

• Encourages waking dreams.

• Purposefully uses their imagination to create possible scenarios from their waking dreams.

• Selects a scenario that fires up passionate desire.

• Strengthens their vision by constantly "dreaming" about it on a conscious waking level.

• Takes focused, committed action to bring their dream, or vision, into reality.

Creating Visionary Success

The success achieved by ultra successful people often brings outrageous rewards and plentiful financial returns.

You may or not be motivated to become a millionaire. That's not really the issue. Many people can live the life of their dreams without being wealthy. You may be one of them.

Or perhaps your vision has nothing to do with money at all. It could focus on creativity, or simply a less stressful lifestyle.

The real issue is: what kind of life do you want to create for yourself?

How to Get Started
Here's a great bit of advice by the famous American writer, Mark Twain: "The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex, overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one."

Try this approach to get yourself started:

1. First, give yourself the luxury of some relaxing time alone. Then just imagine how you would like to spend the rest of your life. It's often especially good to get out in nature.

2. Second, allow yourself to "daydream" about what your ideal life would look like. Be sure NOT to place limits on the size of your dreams.

3. Third, as you do your visionary waking dreams, watch for one vision that seems especially inviting or exciting to YOU. The greatest power in manifesting a vision is PASSION.

4. Now memorize (or write down, if that's your style) the essence of that vision. And make a commitment to yourself to "re-visualize" it several times a day.

Open your awareness to steps you can take to bring your vision into reality. Just begin to take action. Even 10 minutes a day adds up quickly.

Pay no attention to negative fears or feelings of inadequacy. The process itself will handle them. This is NOT a race -- it's about the rest of your life.

If you can't get your visionary process moving, try going for a walk or run. Or go swimming, biking, hiking, or even weight-lifting.

How to Keep it Going
Ultra successful people are that way because they've learned how to light up their own passion - and keep it hot.

If you're out there by yourself, this can be a challenge at first. You may even feel a bit overwhelmed.

This is a common experience for most of us when doing something new - especially if that "something" involves expanding our own self. Remember not to make the visionary process unnecessarily difficult. Enjoy yourself.

Make each step of the way as enjoyable and playful as possible. This IS your life, after all.

Just persist in revisiting your ideal vision. Your amazing brain will build stronger and neural networks to help your vision manifest. That's a proven scientific fact.

The author, Dr Jill Ammon-Wexler, is a doctor of psychology, pioneer brain/mind researcher, and former advisor to the Pentagon, a Presidential Commission, and numerous top executives and executive teams.

Achieving Your Dreams

Only through the pursuit of one's dreams may they fully discover who they truly are and who they were meant to be.

By Helen Morris

Have you achieved your dreams? Dreams are an important part of our lives and should not be ignored. Our dreams inspire us to achieve unbelievable deeds, create stunning works of art, bring to life the impossible and give us hope and strength to look toward tomorrow with optimism and determination. But what if no one believed in their dreams and never took a chance to make them come true? Think about that for a moment and contemplate what our world would look like.

Certainly without dreams the Wright Brothers would have never perfected the flying machine. What would our world look like today without the airplane?

How about Thomas Edison and the light bulb? He invented the light bulb that lights up our homes, our cities and our nation. What would the world look like today without the light bulb?

How about President Kennedy's dream of reaching the moon? Because he dared to dream and challenge our nation not only did we reach the moon but look at the wonderful products that we now use on a daily basis that were born out of the space race. What would our world look like today without dreams?

How about you? What are your dreams? What have you done today to make your dreams come true? What have you done in the last six months to make your dreams come true? Unfortunately most of us daydream about achieving our dreams but never make concrete plans to achieve them.

Here are some guidelines to help turn your dreams from simple daydreaming to reality.

1) Clarify your dream. Many people say immediately their dream is to become rich. Okay, that's fine but how are you going to get "rich"? How much money exactly would that be? People also have a habit of wanting to please others and their dream is actually the dream of their parents, spouse, significant other, or friends. You know it is your dream when you feel the passion as you envision your dream coming true. If you don't have passion then it is not your dream. Passion is what fuels your dream and will keep you going despite setbacks and problems.

2) Spend some time researching your dream. If your dream involves a different job, lifestyle or location spend some time researching your dream and find out what the qualifications are, the best locations, what training is available and everything-in-between. Become an expert on what it will take to achieve your dream.

3) Layout a strategic plan how you are to achieve your dream. This is a crucial; you must be practical and realistic. You must figure in the cost element not only in money but in personal time and relationships. The idea is to progress towards the dream each and every day.

4) You must rally support from friends and family. Take time out to explain to those important people in your life just how important it is to you to achieve your dreams. Those who support you will be invaluable and a great source of strength.

5) Join trade organizations, volunteer your time, and subscribe to magazines or newsletters. Immerse yourself and spend time with those people who are currently living your dream and ask them for advice on how to proceed. They can save you time, money, resources, and frustration.

6) Make a realistic timeline for achieving your dreams; be flexible. No plan is made in stone. Expect some setbacks, it is part of life. Everyone who is successful experienced setbacks and disappointments in achieving their dreams. What sets them apart from everyone else is they didn't quit. They learned from their experiences and moved on to achieve their dreams.

Dreams are important and they make life exciting, rewarding, and fulfilling. I encourage you to spend some significant time thinking about your dream. It is only through our dreams that we tap into our most creative and inspirational side of who we are.

Self Motivation: Change will Occur With Or Without You

Self Motivation : What do frogs have to do with self motivation and personal development?

Here's an old school science experiment for you. Take two frogs, two pans of water, and two burners. Now. let the first pan of water come to a boil then try placing the first frog intothe boiling water. What happens? He will hop out very quickly, of course. Why? Because he is not able to tolerate the sudden change in his environment, going from room temperature to the boilingwater so quickly.

Now. take the second pot of water, set it on the burner and let it just get a little luke warm. Nowplace the second frog in the lukewarm water. Let the water continue to get hot. The frog will stay in the boiling water longer than the first one did. Why is that? Because the change wasn't as drastic so was able to get used to the change in temperature quicker.

Your personal life is much the same way. You may have reached a point in your life when you are ready for change and are willing to put forth the effort to make that change happen. But it's usually the sudden shifts in your "climate", the drastic upheavels, that let you know there's a problem and it's time to try something different.

the slower changes aren't as noticable, and is one reason why you are usually able to stay in a painful situation longer than you should. Like the second frog, you don't realize the water's getting hotter until it's boiling over.

When it comes to changing a situation you are in, pain is a great motivator. You finally see the warning signs when things get too rough to handle any longer. For instance, when do you usually realize that you need to go on a diet? When none of your clothes fit you any longer. Or when do you realize that you should quit smoking? When you can't walk a block without struggling for breath.

The only time most of us ever attempt self motivation is when the whole world is crashing downaround us. The biggest reason you don't like to change is because it can be very painful at times. But the truth is that change is even more painful when you choose to ignore it.

Change will happen, like it or not. Throughout your lifetime, you are going to experience different turning points and change is going to occur, whether for the better or worse, whether you want to admit it or not.

So if change is going to occur anyway, wouldn't it be better to change because you want to instead of because you have to? Rather than waiting for the climatic disaster to hit, keep your eye out for the small details that are telling you that change is getting ready to happen.

For instance, if you notice that you are spending more money each week than you can reasonably afford, start working on managing your money better and quit spending so much on frivilous items. Don't wait until your car is repossessed or your lights are turned off.

Don't be like the frog who didn't realize change was happening until he got burnt.Change is goingto occur, whether you like it or not, so take control of your life, practice some self motivation and make the changes happen that you want to happen.

self motivation

Strategies In Decision Making

Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide. -Napoleon Bonaparte

Some of the decision making techniques that we use in everyday life include:

• listing the advantages and disadvantages of each option, popularized by Benjamin Franklin
• flipping a coin, cutting a deck of playing cards, and other random or coincidence methods
• accepting the first option that seems like it might achieve the desired result
• tarot cards, astrology, augurs, revelation, or other forms of divination
• acquiesce to a person in authority or an "expert"

There are often many solutions to a given problem, and the decision maker's task is to choose one of them. The task of choosing can be as simple or as complex as the importance of the decision warrants, and the number and quality of alternatives can also be adjusted according to importance, time, resources and so on. There are several strategies used for choosing. Among them are the following:

1. Optimizing
This is the strategy of choosing the best possible solution to the problem, discovering as many alternatives as possible and choosing the very best. How thoroughly optimizing can be done is dependent on

A. importance of the problem
B. time available for solving it
C. cost involved with alternative solutions
D. availability of resources, knowledge
E. personal psychology, values

Note that the collection of complete information and the consideration of all alternatives is seldom possible for most major decisions, so that limitations must be placed on alternatives.

2. Satisficing
In this strategy, the first satisfactory alternative is chosen rather than the best alternative. If you are very hungry, you might choose to stop at the first decent looking restaurant in the next town rather than attempting to choose the best restaurant from among all (the optimizing strategy). The word satisficing was coined by combining satisfactory and sufficient. For many small decisions, such as where to park, what to drink, which pen to use, which tie to wear, and so on, the satisficing strategy is perfect.

3. Maximax
This stands for "maximize the maximums" . This strategy focuses on evaluating and then choosing the alternatives based on their maximum possible payoff. This is sometimes described as the strategy of the optimist, because favorable outcomes and high potentials are the areas of concern. It is a good strategy for use when risk taking is most acceptable, when the go-for-broke philosophy is reigning freely.

4. Maximin
This stands for "maximize the minimums". In this strategy, that of the pessimist, the worst possible outcome of each decision is considered and the decision with the highest minimum is chosen. The Maximin orientation is good when the consequences of a failed decision are particularly harmful or undesirable. Maximin concentrates on the salvage value of a decision, or of the guaranteed return of the decision. It's the philosophy behind the saying, "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush."

Quiz shows exploit the uncertainty many people feel when they are not quite sure whether to go with a maximax strategy or a maximin one: "Okay, Mrs. Freen, you can now choose to take what you've already won and go home, or risk losing it all and find out what's behind door number three."

Example: I could put my $10,000 in a genetic engineering company, and if it creates and patents a new bacteria that helps plants resist frost, I could make $50,000. But I could also lose the whole $10,000. But if I invest in a soap company, I might make only $20,000, but if the company goes completely broke and gets liquidated, I'll still get back $7,000 of my investment, based on its book value.

Example: It's fourth down and ten yards to go on your twenty yard line. Do you go for a long pass or punt? Maximax would be to pass; Maximin would be to punt.

Procedures In Decision Making

It's not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are. -Roy Disney

The ethical principles of decision making vary considerably. Some common choices of principles and the methods which seem to match them include:

• the most powerful person/group decides
• everyone participates in a certain class of meta-decisions
  
• everyone participates in every decision

There are many grades of decision making which have an element of participation. A common example is that of institutions making decisions which affect those they are charged to provide for. In such cases an understanding of what participation is, is crucial to understand the process and the power structures at play.

Procedures In Decision Making

1. Identify the decision to be made together with the goals it should achieve.
Determine the scope and limitations of the decision. Is the new job to be permanent or temporary or is that not yet known (thus requiring another decision later)? Is the new package for the product to be put into all markets or just into a test market? How might the scope of the decision be changed--that is, what are its possible parameters?

When thinking about the decision, be sure to include a clarification of goals: We must decide whom to hire for our new secretary, one who will be able to create an efficient and organized office. Or, We must decide where to go on vacation, where we can relax and get some rest from the fast pace of society.

2. Get the facts.
But remember that you cannot get all the facts. Get as many facts as possible about a decision within the limits of time imposed on you and your ability to process them, but remember that virtually every decision must be made in partial ignorance. Lack of complete information must not be allowed to paralyze your decision. A decision based on partial knowledge is usually better than not making the decision when a decision is really needed. The proverb that "any decision is better than no decision," while perhaps extreme, shows the importance of choosing. When you are racing toward a bridge support, you must decide to turn away to the right or to the left. Which way you turn is less important than the fact that you do indeed turn.

As part of your collection of facts, list your feelings, hunches, and intuitive urges. Many decisions must ultimately rely on or be influenced by intuition because of the remaining degree of uncertainty involved in the situation.

Also as part of your collection of facts, consult those who will be affected by and who will have to implement your decision. Input from these people not only helps supply you with information and help in making the decision but it begins to produce the acceptance necessary in the implementers because they feel that they are part of the decision making process. As Russell Ackoff noted in The Art of Problem Solving, not consulting people involved in a decision is often perceived as an act of aggression.

3. Develop alternatives.
Make a list of all the possible choices you have, including the choice of doing nothing. Not choosing one of the candidates or one of the building sites is in itself a decision. Often a non decision is harmful as we mentioned above--not choosing to turn either right or left is to choose to drive into the bridge. But sometimes the decision to do nothing is useful or at least better than the alternatives, so it should always be consciously included in the decision making process.

Also be sure to think about not just identifying available alternatives but creating alternatives that don't yet exist. For example, if you want to choose which major to pursue in college, think not only of the available ones in the catalog, but of designing your own course of study.

4. Rate each alternative.
This is the evaluation of the value of each alternative. Consider the negative of each alternative (cost, consequences, problems created, time needed, etc.) and the positive of each (money saved, time saved, added creativity or happiness to company or employees, etc.). Remember here that the alternative that you might like best or that would in the best of all possible worlds be an obvious choice will, however, not be functional in the real world because of too much cost, time, or lack of acceptance by others.

Also don't forget to include indirect factors in the rating. If you are deciding between machines X, Y, and Z and you already have an employee who knows how to operate machine Z, that fact should be considered. If you are choosing an investigative team to send to Japan to look at plant sites and you have very qualified candidates A, B, and C, the fact that B is a very fast typist, a superior photographer or has some other side benefit in addition to being a qualified team member, should be considered. In fact, what you put on your hobbies and interests line on your resume can be quite important when you apply for a job just because employers are interested in getting people with a good collection of additional abilities.

5. Rate the risk of each alternative.
In problem solving, you hunt around for a solution that best solves a particular problem, and by such a hunt you are pretty sure that the solution will work. In decision making, however, there is always some degree of uncertainty in any choice. Will Bill really work out as the new supervisor? If we decide to expand into Canada, will our sales and profits really increase? If we let Jane date Fred at age fifteen, will the experience be good? If you decide to marry person X or buy car Y or go to school Z, will that be the best or at least a successful choice?

Risks can be rated as percentages, ratios, rankings, grades or in any other form that allows them to be compared.

6. Make the decision.
If you are making an individual decision, apply your preferences (which may take into account the preferences of others). Choose the path to follow, whether it includes one of the alternatives, more than one of them (a multiple decision) or the decision to choose none.

And of course, don't forget to implement the decision and then evaluate the implementation, just as you would in a problem solving experience.

One important item often overlooked in implementation is that when explaining the decision to those involved in carrying it out or those who will be affected by it, don't just list the projected benefits: frankly explain the risks and the drawbacks involved and tell why you believe the proposed benefits outweigh the negatives. Implementers are much more willing to support decisions when they (1) understand the risks and (2) believe that they are being treated with honesty and like adults.

Remember also that very few decisions are irrevocable. Don't cancel a decision prematurely because many new plans require time to work--it may take years for your new branch office in Paris to get profitable--but don't hesitate to change directions if a particular decision clearly is not working out or is being somehow harmful. You can always make another decision to do something else.

Approaches To Decision Making

Practice decisiveness: Don't flounder around all day sorting through more and more facts; gather a reasonable amount of information, study it, then make a decision. -Bill Brooks

According to behavioralist Isabel Briggs Myers(1962), a person's decision making process depends to a significant degree on their cognitive style. Starting from the work of Carl Jung, Myers developed a set of four bi-polar dimensions. The terminal points on these dimensions are: thinking and feeling; extroversion and introversion; judgement and perception; and sensing and intuition. She claimed that a person's decision making style is based largely on how they score on these four dimensions. For example, someone that scored near the thinking, extroversion, sensing, and judgement ends of the dimensions would tend to have a logical, analytical, objective, critical, and empirical decision making style.

There are two major approaches to decision making in an organization, the authoritarian method in which an executive figure makes a decision for the group and the group method in which the group decides what to do.

1. Authoritarian.
The manager makes the decision based on the knowledge he can gather. He then must explain the decision to the group and gain their acceptance of it. In some studies, the time breakdown for a typical operating decision is something like this:

make decision, 5 min.; explain decision, 30 min.; gain acceptance, 30 min.

2. Group.
The group shares ideas and analyses, and agrees upon a decision to implement. Studies show that the group often has values, feelings, and reactions quite different from those the manager supposes they have. No one knows the group and its tastes and preferences as well as the group itself. And, interestingly, the time breakdown is something like this:

group makes decision, 30 min.; explain decision, 0 min.; gain acceptance, 0 min.

Clearly, just from an efficiency standpoint, group decision making is better. More than this, it has been shown many times that people prefer to implement the ideas they themselves think of. They will work harder and more energetically to implement their own idea than they would to implement an idea imposed on them by others. We all have a love for our own ideas and solutions, and we will always work harder on a solution supported by our own vision and our own ego than we will on a solution we have little creative involvement with.

There are two types of group decision making sessions. First is free discussion in which the problem is simply put on the table for the group to talk about. For example, Joe has been offered a job change from shift supervisor to maintenance foreman. Should he take the job?

The other kind of group decision making is developmental discussion or structured discussion. Here the problem is broken down into steps, smaller parts with specific goals. For example, instead of asking generally whether Joe should take the job, the group works on sub questions: What are Joe's skills? What skills does the new job require? How does Joe rate on each of the skills required? Notice that these questions seek specific information rather than more general impressionistic opinions.

Developmental discussion (1) insures systematic coverage of a topic and (2) insures that all members of the group are talking about the same aspect of the problem at the same time.