The Sunday Mail
“Watch your thoughts; they become words.
Watch your words; they become actions.
Watch your actions; they become habit.
Watch your habits; they become character.
Watch your character; it becomes your destiny” — Lao Tzu
We are all on a bus journey, from birth to death, with a few adventurous details in between.
It is up to you to choose the bus to take. You do not afford the luxury to sit, smiling all the way when you can see that the bus you are in is the wrong one.
The negativity bus will never take you to a positive destination.
Get off the negativity bus and get into the positive energy bus. Quit complaining and thinking like a victim.
Instead of thinking that the world owes you a living, get up and take responsibility.
Start doing something, else you will be complaining for a lifetime. Stop being a commentator and start supplying solutions.
It starts in the mind. How you think and what you focus on. Focus on the negative and you will see your world curving into an abyss.
Stop crying about sales that are not coming and start looking for customers. Stop complaining and start planning. Look for the negative and you will find it because you usually find what you are looking for.
Wet blanket
Michael Jackson gave his third son the nickname “Blanket”. What he had in mind I can never guess.
What I know is that there is no wet blanket that is ever comfortable. There are people that are wet blankets. They are sour, bitter and always complaining.
They always know who failed, and who will. They know the ideas that were tried that did not work. They know everything and everyone who is wrong.
They are always on a mission to parade the negative and to celebrate failure.
Wet blankets know the downside of everything. They see no hope or possibility. Wet blankets extinguish your fire and take away your enthusiasm for life.
If ever you find yourself sleeping on a wet blanket, help yourself and remove the wet blanket. Take yourself away from negative people and situations.
You can never thrive when you are possessed with toxic thinking and negative ideas.
When Michael Jackson Jr (Blanket) entered middle school in 2015, he changed his name to “Bigi” because he was being bullied.
If you are a “wet blanket”, consider also changing your name to something drier and more positive. The world is not too bad a place after all.
Energy vampires
Energy vampires suck energy, passion and enthusiasm out of your life.
Deliberately shut the energy vampires out of your life. You can do without them. If all your friends are negative, find new company.
If all the people you know think there is no hope, find someone who believes in possibilities and dreams.
Do not hang around energy vampires unless you want to age soon and die early. Be focused and look to the future.
Believe in possibilities. Take heart and take courage. You can become anything that you dare to become.
You can go to wherever you have visualised. Embrace positive energy and glide on it. Dream possibilities and wake up to the reality of your own greatness.
It is true that there are problems all around.
Every problem you have always carries with it an equal and opposite measure of blessing and possibility. Your greatness is nestled in the problems that you solve.
Do not complain too soon and run away too early.
Your problems are a door to your greatness. Shut out the energy vampires and embrace new possibilities.
Zoom button
Digital cameras have a zoom button to draw objects closer or further away from you.
You use the zoom button to “zoom away” from a detail and you can also “zoom in” to get better focus and better detail.
To change your life, change your focus. Zoom away from the negative and zoom in to the positive. Stop gathering all the evidence of failure, fatality and impossibility.
Zoom away from negatives and zoom into possibilities. Focus your energy, time and attention to the positive. Don’t waste your time on negative people and incessant complainers.
To win in life, use your mental zoom button creatively and deliberately.
Every situation you face has something positive and negative in it. What you focus on is your choice. Choose wisely and do not let the camera focus on “automatic”.
Catch yourself focusing on the negative and use positive affirmations to redirect your mind to the positive.
Your mind and attention are too important for you to repose them on the negative. Do not let your attention be on auto-pilot.
Keep your mind on the things that you want and not those that you do not want. Zoom into where you want to go; not where you do not want to go.
Be positive and focus on the future you desire; not the one you dread.
The blindfold
Stop looking into the blindfold and thinking that all is “doom and gloom.”
There are opportunities that are available now that may never be available. This moment may be the best time of your life, you may just be too negative to see it.
Remove the negativity blindfold and start seeing things with a new light.
Not everything has broken down; there is hope. There are opportunities and possibilities beyond your wildest dreams. It all depends on your perspective and vision.
Stop simply staring at life and just mindlessly looking.
Start seeing and you will kick yourself. What you see with your mind is more important than what you see with your eyes.
What your mind sees determines the trajectory of your life and the energy that you will have.
Track your thoughts and words, for in them are hidden the clues to your destiny. If your thought train is persistently negative, it is time to call a time out and change. Feed your mind with the positive and saturate your mouth with a new narrative.
Use positive affirmations and focus your mind through visualisation. In any situation, deliberately look for the positive and focus on it.
Refuse to dwell on the negative. Choose to forgive and release any bitterness.
Your batteries
If you are running out of firepower and you are getting tired, recharge your batteries. Rest a little and get up and keep going.
You do not afford the luxury of a negative thought. Spend time with someone who has positive energy and you will feel recharged. Attend a good service; that will recharge you. Read a good book and you will feel a new energy.
Do whatever you know helps recharge you.
From Makokoba
You may have heard of Cont Mhlanga. His organisation, Amakhosi Theatre Productions (also known as Amakhosi Academy of Performing Arts), is based at Amakhosi Township Square Cultural Centre in Makokoba, Bulawayo.
Amakhosi was established in 1981 and has become an influential cultural institution.
His theatre organisation has played a huge role in developing many artists, stimulating the performing arts scene and examining critical social issues in rural and urban communities through active audience engagement.
How did Amakhosi start?
It started through a change of thinking. It started by turning negative energy into positive energy.
The group started in 1979 when Mhlanga and his Dragons Karate Club members turned up one day for their regular training session at Makokoba’s Stanley Hall and found the place booked for a theatre workshop.
What would you have done when you are a good karateka? Run? Fight? Complain? Threaten?
The Dragon Karate Club members, out of curiosity, attended the workshop and this became their turning point. Their enthusiasm for theatre was ignited and Mhlanga became an enchanted man.
He began to attend theatre workshops in Bulawayo and Harare in 1980 and 1981. He would return to share newly acquired skills with his karate club.
In 1981, the Dragons Karate Club officially renamed itself “Amakhosi Productions”.
Their initial plays had a lot of karate moves and in time the group matured and has become a renowned theatre force.
Amakhosi’s motto for many years was “Umkhulu lumsebenzi.” That is, “This work is big!”
That is the attitude that turns small dreams into big ones, negative energy into positive. Realise that what looks small today will not be small forever.
Where you are today is not where you will always be. You are destined for greatness. Think big, court positive energy and you will fly.
In the early days, Amakhosi simply wanted to be well known in Makokoba. As they worked on their big dream, they have toured the world and unleashed a lot of talent beyond their wildest dreams.
So it is with you.
You are destined for greatness. We have not yet seen the best of you!
Instead of looking down, choose to look up. See the light and look up to God for wisdom, ideas and clarity of thought.
Stop looking backwards, else you may turn into a pillar of salt. Stop focusing of the negative – that is unnecessary baggage.
Look ahead, think big and see great possibilities.
You have big work to do and you are a champion. Your testing situations of today will be your testimony tomorrow.
Choose to fly. Be positive.
Milton Kamwendo is an international transformational and inspirational speaker, author and coach. He is a strategy, innovation, team-building and leadership facilitator. Feedback: [email protected], Twitter @MiltonKamwendo and WhatsApp +263772422634
