If we wear green-tinted glasses, everything appears green, but after a while we forget we have put on the glasses. Similarly, we are unaware of how our beliefs colour the world we see.

Today, bring your beliefs out into the sunlight. Have a daring conversation with someone close to you about the beliefs you and they hold dear on the big questions: friendship, purpose in life, love or death.

This will be like holding up a mirror to the beliefs that unconsciously drive you. You will get a sense that the world you see is the one you create. It's time to spring clean the beliefs that hold you back.

You are what you read. We love opinions that reinforce our own familiar view of life, that is the correct version!

To expand your mind, buy a different paper every day and read magazines and books that are on the periphery of your normal preoccupations. Many great ideas, or re-thinks, come from this peripheral vision.

Apply the same thinking to the people you meet and spend time with. Will you learn something new from this encounter, or just have your comfortable worldview confirmed?

Take a risk – talk to a stranger!

'One month in a job and you go blind' is a perfect description of how it's possible to sleepwalk through life, and how familiarity dulls curiosity.

Open-page thinking means approaching each day, each encounter or problem with the freshness and sense of wonder of a beginner. Fire yourself from your job or relationship and think what would it be like to start again?

The reality is that change is dis-continuous, meaning that each day is a fresh start. Design the perfect beginning and let the first sight your eyes alight on be an object of beauty, not an alarm clock.

We all know that little voice inside that whispers, 'What you are creating is not good!' Re-Think describes this as yes-but thinking.

Count how many times today you yes-but the ideas of others – your partner, children, colleague, or a new notion you read in the press. Typically, you may say, or think – 'With respect …' 'I hear what you say, but. . .' 'The problem with that is .. .' And so on.

The antidote is to train your first reflex to be 'why not?' or 'what if?' Explore, extend, and play with new ideas – your own or others' – before you condemn.

You are either a creator or a critic – there's no middle ground. Now is the time to try a first take at bringing your creative fantasy to life. Just switch off that little voice that's holding you back...

"You're not paying attention" is a criticism we've all heard, from teachers, loved ones, and working partners. What we put our attention on grows: there's always a rose and a thorn, but pay attention to the thorn and strangely we are more likely to prick ourselves.

The trick is to guide our attention to what's constructive, positive, and creative in our lives. This also means being fully present: there's no present like the time we give to our own ambitions, or to those we claim to care about.

Introduce the second element: if a room is full of darkness, we fix the problem by introducing the light. Is your mind fixated on problems or possibility? Attend to the latter and difficulties may not vanish, but will certainly fade into the background. Nothing great is ever achieved without the full power of our attention.

Today you will pretend to know something you really don't, and as a result will prevent yourself from learning or re-thinking. It will happen like this. Someone will say, "Of course you're familiar with this (book, theory, study, idea)." You will respond, "Yes, though not in great detail." You will be thinking, "I don't know what the hell you are talking about."

Stop! Act like a child and say, "No. Could you tell me about it?" In this way you may (a) get a good explanation that saves you having to read it, and (b) open your mind to the new.

Teach Yourself Ignorance means learning like a child by making mistakes, not assuming you know more than you do or stereotyping a topic as uninteresting. You can always choose to listen to a nay-sayer or an enthusiast.

We leave and return to our families, often many times a week, but what are your rituals for departing and homecoming? Create or rediscover them if you don't want to be a ghost in your own life.

When you leave, is expressing your love on the same mental list as remembering your car keys or documents? Be fully present and don't leave until you've expressed (by word or touch) your true feelings. And when you return, know that the quality of the first few minutes will set the tone for the whole evening or weekend.

There are rituals for family meals together, family stories, recording adventures and holidays. In a disrupted, always on, always available, digital world we need to find ways of enjoying 'slowness' together. As the poet says: "Sit. Feast on your life."