Month: August 2019

Don’t Dwell On What Went Wrong

by Bright Osadiaye, posted in Personal Development
Man With Hand on Temple Looking at Laptop
Photo by Bruce Mars on Pexels.com

Things will always go wrong in life. You cannot control everything in life. There are things that you can control, and there are things you cannot control. Control what you can control. Don’t worry about what you cannot control. If you focus on what you cannot control, that is the beginning of unhappiness. If you want to be happy, focus on what you can control.

Look, if you have everything under your belt, you are playing it too safe. When you are playing a safe game, nothing significant will go wrong. But when you are playing a rough and intelligent game, something will go wrong. When you are trying to change your life, it won’t be easy. When you are getting into a new job, a new career, a new city, it won’t be easy. When you are trying to be creative, it won’t be easy. When you are trying to live your life, in your own way, it won’t be easy. It is not always going to be easy. But if you play your game well, you can reduce the stress associated with moving forward. As Mario Andretti put it, “If you have everything under control, you are not moving fast enough.” When you are doing creative things, you have no control over them. You just want to explore.

Dennis Waitley said, “Don’t dwell on what went wrong. Instead, focus on what to do next. Spend your energy on moving forward toward finding the answer.” Whatever you are going through in life, looking forward for solutions is the best answer. If you continue to dwell on the past, you can’t find the right solution to your problem.

In moving forward, focus on how you are going to improve your life, not living in the past. If you continue to live in the past, you will always find it hard to enjoy the moment. Look forward, not backward. Discipline yourself for greatness. Jim Rohn said, “It is the small discipline that leads to great accomplishments.” Instead of beating yourself up, focus on doing the things that will take you closer to your dreams. The little things matter. If you do the little things well, the big things will take care of themselves. In addition to that, you must program yourself for success. Don’t live in yesterday’s world. Live in today’s world. Think success. Plan for success. Preparation is the key to success. If you want to succeed, you must prepare yourself to succeed. Confucius, the great philosopher, said, “Success depends on our previous preparations, and without such preparations there is sure to be failure.” If you want to succeed, you must be ready to work hard. Success depends on hard work.

If you don’t live in yesterday, if you don’t focus on what is not working for you, if you focus on the positive things and how to make things better for you, you will come back again. You will come back again!

Creativity

by Bright Osadiaye, posted in Workplace Creativity
Blue and Purple Color Pencils
Photo by PixaBay on Pexels.com

Creativity starts in the mind. If you are not creative in your mind, you can’t be creative in your job. We all have the ability to be creative, but we are busy beating ourselves up for what we cannot do. You are a creative person ONLY if you see yourself as one.

You can be a creative person if you want to. It is in your mind. It is in how you see yourself. If you see yourself as a creative person, your brain will pick it up. But if you don’t see yourself as a creative person, it will be difficult for you to change. This is not to scare you. You can do it. It starts with looking at things differently, thinking differently, challenging yourself, getting out of your comfort zone, opening your mind to new ideas, meeting new people, and asking intelligent questions. You can be creative. YOU DON’T NEED A UNIVERSITY DEGREE TO BE CREATIVE. If you can think, you can be creative.

Creativity means looking at things in different ways. You need creative ideas to move on in life. As Edward de Bono put it, “Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in different ways.” I know sometimes it is hard to be creative in an organization that doesn’t support creativity. A lot of people want to express their creative ideas, but the organizations they work for do not support them. If your organization does not support creative ideas, there is nothing you can do about it. If you need it badly, you might consider leaving the company. Before you do that, make sure it is your core mission to use your creativity to better your life and the lives of the people around you. If not, don’t leave your job.

As I said earlier, you don’t need a college degree to be creative. If you want to be a creative person, open your mind to new people and to new ideas. Don’t reject what you don’t know. Instead of you rejecting it, ask great questions about it. Remember, questions lead to more questions, not to more answers. You can also increase your creativity by your associations. Hang out with creative people. If you do that, you will start to develop your creative muscles. The more you use it, the better it becomes. Maya Angelou famously said, “You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” Yes, the more you train your creative muscles, the more you will have.

If you want your creative muscles to grow, start using them today, right now!