If you remember “The Archie Bunker Show,” on television, you may remember a skit where Archie, played by Carroll O’Connor and his son-in-law, played by Rob Reiner, are arguing about whether one should put both socks on before their shoes or put one sock and a shoe and then the other.

This was a funny scene and made for entertaining television but, if you stop and think about it, you probably do one or the other every time you get dressed and have probably been dressing yourself the same way since you were a child.

While something as benign as how you dress yourself will have little, if any, effect on your success, your other habits will.

By changing your habits and altering your patterns, you will activate different neural pathways in your brain which, in turn, will produce new associations. Something as simple as changing the route you take to and from work each day will cause you to see new things which will spark new thoughts and ideas. As a result, you will increase your creativity.

Do you take pretty much the same actions in your work or business each day? Most of us have routines we follow and, while there is nothing wrong with this, it can stifle our creativity and prevent us from major breakthroughs.

What could you do to change your routine? Could you change some of the daily actions you take? For example, would changing the way you handle email enable you to take a new action or complete a more urgent task? I found myself answering my email first thing in the morning, as though the sender was sitting there at 6:00am, waiting for my answer. While this is unlikely, it does prevent me from doing something more important.

Scheduling a specific time to answer my email has freed my early morning time for me to write. Not only is this the most important component of my work, it is also the time I write best, since my mind is still clear and calm after my morning meditation and quiet time. Delaying email further has provided me with the opportunity to get back to my morning exercise, another task that is critical to my well being.

When I go out, I always follow a different route to wherever I’m going. Over time, I have found this drive time to be one of my best times for brainstorming ideas. I carry a small digital recorder to capture any brainstorms I have in the car.

The more you can “shakeup” your routines, the more you will stimulate your creative mind. If you want to try an interesting experiment, when you’re getting dressed in the morning, put your pants on the opposite way from how you usually do it. If you usually place your right leg in first, this time put your left leg in first. Be sure to stand where you can sit quickly since this may well cause you to lose your balance. That is how strongly we are conditioned to our daily routines. When you take a shower, wash yourself in a different way than you usually do and notice how strange it feels. Take a new route to work tomorrow and see how that feels.

The more you take advantage of opportunities to stimulate your mind, the more you will find new, creative ideas popping into your head and the more likely you will produce significant results.

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