The Sunday Mail
EVERYTHING starts with a seed, sometimes the seed is small and tiny, but always packed with potential.
Every big door requires a little key to swing it open. There is always some action, a concept, idea and a way of understanding which when understood will most likely move you forward.
I will illustrate what I mean using two examples.
When I was young, I never really used to really, really, really wet my blankets. It would just be a sudden experience. I was just misunderstood and my mind and body were not aligned. This is how it would work.
While in my dreams I would feel the urge to relieve myself. I would see myself waking up; tip-toe, I would run to the toilet. Then I would take a strategic position and as soon as I was in action, a miracle would happen.
I would just suddenly wake up and would realise that I am too late, everything was happening in my mind.
Physically, I was still in bed. Mentally, I had gone through the whole perfect process per my mother’s dictums, but physically I would often embarrassingly find myself with wet blankets.
At some point, my dreams and reality were reconciled. Other people also face the same dilemma in different contexts. They dream in colour and live in the grey zone of life.
The reality in the mind differs from the reality elsewhere. You find yourself building castles in the mind, yet find yourself sleeping in a shack. You dream of greatness and yet find that you are still trapped in little things and a myriad of little problems and concerns that should be children’s play.
I will come back to the issue of dream in a minute.
To understand the essence of things, you need simple recipes or formulae. This is how I was taught to speak and write in isiNdebele. My teacher advised that what I needed to remember is just: “A, E, I, O, U”.
From there the rest was just applying the formula and increasing the colour of the vocabulary.
I then started working from there to the longer alphabet, but never to forget the song, “a, e, i, o, u” and then go on to “ba, be, bi, bo, bu” until I got through to “xa, xe, xi, xo, xu”.
The rest was left for strategic mastery, my pass in isiNdebele was secured so long as I built on this good base.
So it is with life.
Find the seed, the recipe and you can replicate the miracle. So it is with the rest of life. It’s a game of recipes.
Life is for dreamers.
Those who see possibilities where others are just looking at life with blank stares. Life is for those who believe in possibilities when cynics are just waiting to run to some place where they could safely pursue dreams without disturbance or any inconvenience. Whatever you do, do not stop dreaming and scouting for possibilities.
Try not to look for the easy way out. Just find a process for you that you start working through and pursuing with dogged determination. Revise your formula but keep working your “a, e, i, o, u” process.
One such formula is the “DREAM process” which is inspired by the “a, e, i, o, u” formula.
You have got to dream, if you want your dreams to happen. You have got to wake up and do something with your dream if your life is not going to turn into a nightmare or wet blanket.
Don’t just go, “Dee”
The first letter in the DREAM recipe is “D”. It is easy to succumb to the ailments that start with that letter. Sometimes I also have to battle with these D-elements.
These include discouragement, defeat, delays, despondency, debt, dispiritedness, downheartedness, dejection, despair, distress, divorce or depression.
On that list if you like you can add darkness, devils and demons. Refuse to succumb to these “Ds” like a donkey.
You may be delayed, that does not mean that it will not happen for you and you will not make it. Delays are not denial. You can feel discouraged. I do feel that sometimes. Never let the feelings of discouragement drag you into the dust of feeling worthless.
Wake up every day with a fresh determination to give your goals another daring shot. There are many people who are qualified but discouraged.
Pick yourself up. Stop thinking and behaving like a victim. Do not think with your feet and run from your challenges.
Let the challenges challenge you to think, study, learn, ask, pray, innovate, create and seek for new paths and possibilities. Do something but do not succumb to the trap of inertia. If you are down, that is the perfect place to start climbing.
Never let any dent on your ego, dent your ability to dream and stand up to give another fight.
Write it down
In his book, the late Dr Joshua Nkomo says that when he went to school, they were taught to master the three “R’s”.
These were Reading, wRiting and aRithmetic.
The same phonetic logic should pass for your dreams: wRrite the dreams down. It is not enough to just dream in your head. Put the dreams on paper.
It is not how perfect the language is. If what works for you is pictures, doodle your dreams somewhere. The shortest pencil is better than the longest memory.
Writing gives structure to thought and clothing to ideas. You cannot act on something until it is crystalised in your mind.
Write the vision down and make it plain and clear. Make it graphic and be focused. It is nothing about your handwriting and it is about giving form to your thoughts. Once it is written other people can help you express it better.
It is like a child, once the child is born you can now get other people to help you look after the child or send the child to school. It is difficult to nurse a child that does not exist or a dream that is not documented and deadlined.
Milton Kamwendo is a cutting-edge international transformational and inspirational speaker, author and coach. He is a strategy and innovation consultant and leadership coach. His life purpose is to inspire people to release the greatness trapped in them. He can be reached at: [email protected] and on WhatsApp number 0772422634.
