Thursday, June 30, 2011

Work on your Workables.

        I may not be a psychologist or a personality geek but I know for certain that most of US fail not because we aren't intelligent or we dont know what we are doing but because we fail to work on the seemingly "workables"...
         Most people are in the habit of reaching out to those things that are far beyond us and leaving those things that are just right within our reach...Hence the failure looks twice as much (Because we cant reach those things beyond us and also those things within our reach).. Luckily for me,after reading a few books on personal effectiveness I came across a concept which I believe is working for me (and will work for you too if you try it)
         Steven Covey in his famous book (the 7 habits of highly effective people)  explained this concept using two concentric circles ,He called  the inner one the Circle of Influence and the outer,larger one the Circle of concerns...
The Larger Circle as the name implies is filled with all our "Concerns" what I call the "Unworkables" whereas the inner circle (the circle of Influence) contains those things that we have direct influence on,that we can change,that we can reach,that we can affect and effect ..I call them the "Workables"...
         Every one of us no matter the age,race or color sure has a these two circles..We have those things that are completely out of our reach and those things that are within our reach..But the most unfortunate thing is that a larger percentage of our time and resources are been concentrated on those things in our circle of concern ..that we cant reach,making us look Uneffective,Unintelligent and sometimes like fools ..whereas we are not..Only if we have concentrated them on our circle of influence ..Somebody would probably have referred to us "a Genius"..
    So what is the way out ??
The simple way out is to concentrate our skills and resources on our Workables..
But how can we work on something we are not even aware of ??
That is why I will encourage you to take this simple exercise...
Take a look a the factors listed below..
(1) Your Boss (2) Your Company Structure (3) What you eat (4) Behavior of your colleagues at work (5) your dressing (6) Your Income (7) Your Spending (8) Your Church  or Mosque (9) Your walk with God.
Have you done that ??
Now Classify them into either "Workables" (that you can work on) or "Unworkables" (that you cant work on) ...After you have done that..proceed to take exercise two :
(1) Get a pencil and a writing pad..
(2) Draw two concentric circles..
Now fix those workables from your previous exercise into the inner circle and the unworkables put them in the larger circle...What do you have??
What you have is a Circle of Influence and a circle of concerns ..the ones I talked about earlier..
So with everything you have learnt so far ..you must take action ..
And what action??
       Find time to sit down and Brainstorm,list out evrything you think has been affecting your life till now...take time to classify them into workables and Unworkables..and also try to fix them into the concentric circles ...then you have your personal Circle of Influence and Concerns...



So what next ??...what you have in your hand is a road map to your personal effectiveness..I hope to talk more on this concept in my next article..
Thank you for reading this I want to believe it has helped you a bit if not much ..

I will like to hear yuor view and comments...

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Problem! Problem!! Problem!!!

I want to believe this word is no longer new to any of us ..we hear it almost everyday of our lives to the extent that some of us have never even ventured to check the meaning in a dictionary.
   The major problem is that the word Problem does not most of the time mean what we have conditioned ourselves to beleive..
So what really is a problem ?? ..I will simply define a problem as any situation that calls for a solution...Did you get that?? Any situation whatsoever that calls for a solution ..Be it a damaged door,a faulty equipment, a feverish condition .anything you can think of that calls for a solution..
Now lets consider what I call The Categories of problems ..After much research and reading about problem solving I will classify problems into 4 categories which are:
(1) The Severe Problems
(2) The Important Problems
(3) The  Real Problems
(4) The Perceived  Problems..
We will take a much deeper look at this classifications in the next write up..
I want to believe you got some few things in this....will like to hear your view and comments...

Monday, June 27, 2011

Problem Solving 101

Over these years have got these ideas burning in my bones,"this is a problem that is a problem" almost everywhere I go there tends to be one problem or the other but of recent I just discovered those problems arent actually where I am seeing them...they are actually with me..in other words i carry them with me so automatically where ever I go I tend to see a problem...
This my new discovery prompted me to want to share my seemingly eye opener with some one out there...
In case you are just like me why not take some few minutes to skim through me eye openers as i call them..
The first shock I had was to learn that most of the "Problems" we have aren't real ..(shocked to hear that too??) ..Imagine you going to a Doctor for a diagnosis on an ailment that has been a disturbance for weeks ..and all your Doctor could say was ..."Young man your tests show that you are very okay!!" what a dilemma...