UNEARTHING SOLUTIONS

Over the past week I have been scratching my head on what I should write about. Ideas have been far between and the few that I did come up with were not good enough. I decided to do some reading to stimulate the flow of creative juices through my mind. Eureka!! I then came upon a principle in the book; The Power Of  Your Subconscious Mind by Dr Joseph Murphy. It states that the answers to all that we seek lie in our subconscious mind, we need to look within, as their is a vast wealth of resources that lie untapped inside us. On this premise I got the idea on what to write about this week, I believe we should look within ourselves for solutions and as we are formulating these solutions, we supplement them with external ideas/solutions. Many times in life when  confronted with challenges, projects or even a task that seem to overwhelm us, we let them drown out the solution within us by magnifying that which confronts us and shift our mindset to just visualize on how we can't overcome the challenge. The obstacles we face in the long run are meant to bring out the best in us (the solutions within), so next time you face a challenge, let us for a change trust in our ability to handle it. God created you to be a solution to that challenge your facing and better yet to be an answer to someone else's problem. How then do you develop a culture of creating solutions and ideas in your life; through reading and exposure. For example: let's say your grades are falling and you decide to do some research on how you can improve your grades. You read that in order to get good grades you need to be spending at least four hours a day studying, you then decide to copy paste this information into your life, and for the first week or so you manage to do it, however after some time you stop and eventually do away with the idea. Why was this so? I think it's because you got the idea from outside but you failed to pair it with the solution within. What you needed was to take this idea and morph it to suit you, thus creating a solution that can be implemented in your life as your the author. So in this incident the best thing to do would be to; ask yourself how long can you study, what time are you at your peak, and create a schedule formulated on this premise. Here, you have taken an external idea (allocation of time towards studying) and used it to form your own solution (studying strategically according to your strength and personality trait). We realise the solution was always inside you, it just needed exposure to another idea to bring it forth. To sum it all up, the solution you seek is within you, expose yourself to other ideas, and combine them to create  tangible answers to that which you seek. You won't believe what you can solve.


You can connect with me on Facebook; Andrew Carlton and Twitter; @drew mboya

Ideas 101

Recently, my mother and I were working on a project (she is a graphic designer and I usually help her with the business). She came up with a unique design for a round about signage; she then sketched it down on paper and later transferred the design onto the computer. Before the actual sign is constructed you have to create a dummy for your design, So as to give the clients an idea of how the final work will look like. So we started creating the dummy and what we thought would be a walk in the park ended up taking eight hours to complete. This was caused by the mistakes we made during construction and new editions that we saw would improve on the initial sign. The dummy however was awesome upon completion and was worth all the hustle. I noticed that in daily life Ideas often chart the same course;

1.INCEPTION OF AN IDEA
We all get ideas, be they in the form of a project, a financial plan, a health and lifestyle change, travelling e.t.c however if this idea only remains encased in our minds, it only remains as a thought which in time will be forgotten. I had the idea to write this blog an if I had not acted on it, it would still be a thought or it would have been replaced by another one.

2.TRANSFERRING THE IDEA
This involves defining your ideas into a form that gives them clarity and helps you to actualize them. One can write down their ideas, talk to a friend about it, research on it and get advice from those who have ideas similar to yours. This is akin to my mother transferring her idea onto the computer, now your idea starts to take shape. Before starting this blog I spent a couple of months reading the blogs of others and learning from their writing techniques, I looked for web hosting sites that would be ideal for me (ideal=free) then I researched on topics that appealed to me and lessons learnt from everyday experiences appealed to me.

3. EXECUTION OF IDEA

Just as we created a dummy for our design, we also can do this with our idea. If your idea was becoming financially stable it may start with something as small as saving fifty shillings (your dummy)  a day that may lead to eventual savings and investment of larger amounts ( end product ). In my case it was writing my first article on paper (dummy ) and transferring it onto this blog (end product ), that has now come together. I still have far to go but I have the satisfaction of having acted on an idea I've had for a while. What are you doing about your ideas?

FLAWED FOCUS

Recently I took a walk to a park to relax and clear my mind I was worried about an issue I was facing and thought the park would help me unwind. However, having reached there and staying for a while there was still no respite or bliss from my worry. I was about to leave when I suddenly noticed I was sitting under a big beautiful tree, it was quite soothing to look at and  seemed to calm me there it dawned on me that I was so focused on my issue that I didn't notice the peace that was all around me. On a lager scale how many of us always seem to never experience the beauty in life, we are never able to get that inner peace or solution we are yearning for even if it's right beside you as in my case. I attribute this to what we focus on, what you decide to keep your mind on, be it the problem or solution, beauty or chaos determines what you will see and  ultimately experience. Sometimes the solution might already be in our grasp but we are too blinded by the challenge we are focusing all our energy on . So next time you face a trial, challenge or suffer duress, pause and recalibrate your focus to a positive, peaceful and surion based outlook. You may be surprised to find you already had the answers within you, that challenge may just be your step to great things or an opportunity for character growth. So let's focus on turning our problems into solutions for us and others. How has shifting your focus helped you comment and let me know:-)