Try writing down your hopes, dreams, goals, visions. Play around with them. You may find as you journal about them, a strategy for making them come true suddenly presents itself, right there in pages of your notebook.

3. Helps you build a bridge to your muse. This one really only kicks in after you've sufficiently done number one (at least, this is way it works for me). It seems only after I've gotten most of junk out of my head that muse sometimes slips out to play a bit.

How do you know muse came to visit you? When that brilliant idea flashes in your head. It may not happen while you're journaling, but instead while you're showering, walking, driving or something else. This is muse talking to you.

It's important to remember muses have quiet voices. They can easily be drowned out by incessant bickering of other noisy chatter going on in your head. Once you can get those other voices to shut up, you can start to listen for muse.

Don't worry if this doesn't happen right away. There have been weeks and even months when I write nothing but junk down. But then, one day, that great idea appears on paper or in my head as I'm walking my dogs.

And when that happens, I know all time I spent journaling about nothing has paid off. Creativity Exercises -- Journal more ideas

I would love it if you made a pact with yourself to journal regularly for a month. If that's too much of a commitment for you, try it as a creativity exercise.

Write down your challenge at top of a piece of paper. Maybe it's ways to increase business or promote your products more or a new PR campaign. Now just start writing about it.

Don't think, just write. Fill a few pages of musing about that particular challenge. Don't type it either -- write longhand. If you wander away from it, try nudging yourself back.

Write for at least 20 minutes. If no answer presents itself in that time, don't get too hung up about it. Try it again next day or a few days in a row. Sometimes it just takes awhile to jar things loose. And remember, great ideas have a tendency to pop up in most unexpected places, not just when you're doing something "creative."

2. Make a committed decision to write. How to do it, and if you can do it, are not to be considered now. Would you attempt to write if you knew for certain you couldn’t fail? Since failure is often defined as “not trying,” then trying equals success. I’ve discovered that carrying out a commitment is often easier than making one. You’ve made a real decision about a goal if, and only if, you find yourself doing something about it.

3. Make a committed decision to write with which you can be flexible. Once you’ve decided to write your book, don’t get stuck on means to achieve it. You are going after finished product. For example, most people think you can just write a book straight through. However, there may be greater value in planning out your book before you write your first word. Circumstances change and you must be able to change with them.

Most new writers and seasoned ones as well, don’t write as much as they can on a daily basis. Even writing part-time, two pages per day is a good start, and more can easily be done if effort is put forth. Spend next 90 days writing at least one page per day. This will get you out of your comfort zone, out of limits you have placed on yourself and out of what you have convinced your brain that you can and cannot do. As you become more and more accustomed to writing and working towards your goal, you will probably discover that you didn’t set a high enough quota of pages.