SIZE DOES NOT MATTER

From the busy city of  Chicago, London, Lagos,  Yokohama,  Seoul,  to the deserts,  forest, mountains into the interior of seas and on the surface of many seas exist souls young and old expressing their talents. These are people whose passion lead them to occupy certain portion in earth. We have seen how passion drove a man named (Ra  Paulette) into the desert to create a master piece cavern. We have seen how passion drove men to travel into galaxies. We have seen how passion drove men into the interior of seas, we have seen how passion drove men into the jungle to make documentaries of some wild creatures.  It is passion and love for music that lead a young man to play his guitar skillfully in the street.  It is passion and love for dancing that lead some group of dancers into the street.  But there are times when these individuals drop their guitar, their surfboard, their dance shoes,their barbell, their snowboard,  their pen for a little want of encouragement.

As mankind we get into this high-low rollercoaster mood now and then. One moment we feel we are just fine and we can do without the encouragement of people at other times we crave the attention of others. We crave their support because it help change our mental outlook and gird us with strength to confront our fears.  We check our dashboard to see how many people viewed our blogs or websites.  We get high when the feedback is positive, we get into the low mood when someone criticize our work,  we get excited when the number of people that appear for our street performance is higher than the previous one and we get sad if the statistic drops.  We ask ourselves for what purpose are we investing so much time,  effort,  sleepless night,  energy, when no one seems to appreciate our work or even give us some words of encouragement.  Then slowly we get into the habit of criticizing our work as we begin to measure the quality of our work with the number of audience we receive.

As mankind we should understand that the size or the number of people we draw does not matter. Comparing the quality of your work with the number of turn up can be limiting. Keep in mind that what interest you might not interest another. When they fail to appreciate your work it might be because they don't see beyond where they find you.  When it comes to your dream you are the only one who knows where you are going. To one person a desert might just be an isolated or a dead area filled with sand interspersed with tiny pebbles but to that man who find passion in photography a desert represent much more than that. To one person the big sea might just be for the pleasure of sight seeing alone but to that young man who has found passion in surfing the big sea represents a platform where he can learn how to surf against the wave and come out a world class surfer. Wherever portion you may occupy at the moment let your passion bring life into the place. Concentrate your attention on becoming better than you were yesterday and not on the crowd you are able to attract.

There are times when we have to become our own life coach,  when we have to tell ourselves things that get us to feel good and face the day with much delight. There are times when we have to get the weight of discouragement off our shoulders by taking in some daily motivational diet. But life is more than relying on a daily doze of motivational pills. You have to work hard and build your talents into skill too.  Learning to appreciate feedback and accepting criticism the good way is a step forward to building yourself and building your skill too.

The art of self talk is a good way to building a healthy self esteem of oneself as it help us move forward against the tide of discouragement. Self talk help give us a sense of internal balance and help concentrate our attention to the things that are more important.  Engaging in self talk require us to build concentration power.  The degree to which we have developed our concentration power determines how very strongly we maintain internal balance in time when we mostly need it. When I first saw the picture of the young boy playing his flute near the pavement, I tried to envisage the whole complex emotional and cognitive processes taking place within him.  Then on a second thought I said to myself,  since he is only a child he should care less if he was able to attract only a cute little kitten.

There are times when we need to be our own life coach.  And one of the excellent qualities of a good coach is to instill confidence in his client  and prevent him from  exaggerating the disadvantages that surrounds him by making him use his sweet spot as a leverage to rise above any disempowering conditions while at the same time working on his weaknesses.  What ever form the self talk technique we utilize, weather we talk to ourselves in our minds or we talk audibly to our hearing, it help silence the voices of discouragement within us and make us the captain of our lives.

Thanks for reading this article.
I dedicate this article to God Almighty who is the source of inspiration and wisdom.

Written by: Uwagboe Anthonia Peace