Intending to make it happen?

A few imaginative suggestions can go a long way in getting thoughts put into ACTION. It is a bit like preparing one’s mind for the possibilities - envisioning a variety of tasty ‘recipes’ for making things happen.

Focus

You could think of your thoughts as keys to achieving the intentions you have. Take time to consider your intentions. Focus a large portion of your thoughts on the subject of your intent. The more familiar you are with the territory, the better will the outcome of your efforts be. The clearer you are, the more likely it is that you’ll stay on track. By rethinking your intentions, you will be able to purify and improve upon it - add onto it with the benefit of new experience you gain each day. This focus is about now, now is the continuum between thoughts and results.  The moment you step up to the dream, is the moment the dream is getting real.

Talk

Say what you want to do, to be, to have...  What you say can have a way of motivating you. It plants the seeds of your intent in you and those who listen to you. Talking to someone also serves as a sound board, making you aware of your valuable, insightful thoughts – some of which you never knew existed. Or those thoughts may have been created during a conversation. Notice whether the way you talk is constructive, this helps you to notice whether your thoughts are constructive.

Learn

Find a variety of your favourite avenues for learning. Gain all the necessary skills and knowledge needed to succeed.  While you learn and practice, spur yourself on with a double dose of belief that you can do it, and you will push through those valleys and plateaus to reach the top. You can keep your energy levels high by incorporating something fun and by assuring yourself that you are doing well, and bring back thoughts about your intent. Incorporate your whole being into the learning and make sure that you stretch yourself but do it gently, a bit further every day.  

Grow

Developing confidence means that what you are learning and doing becomes your second nature. It feels natural and real – your hard work pays off in the form of a set of hardcore skills and the ability to apply your knowledge well.  Begin with the easy stuff and gradually move towards more difficult things – rinse and repeat. What’s hard today is easy tomorrow. Make the process of growing enjoyable for yourself. Be generous with praising and appreciating yourself for your efforts. Keep finding motivation.  Keep in mind that you are growing, so every day the ‘new you’ gets smarter and smarter.  

Monitor

By monitoring your progress, you learn to trust your own judgement. Find ways to monitor yourself which will help you to see how much you have developed. This helps you to make decisions about what would be the next step. You might even notice a need to change direction or to adjust your strategy in some or other way.  Although feedback from others can be very useful, you also need to know for yourself where you are at in the process of acting out your intentions.

Take it on

This is what you wanted. Can you feel it in every inch of your body?  This is the mindset needed to keep you going! Consciously grow, adopt a good attitude and nurture motivational thoughts – eventually it becomes subconscious and automatic. All else will follow. Share your enjoyment and the love for what you do with those around you and get others involved with what you are doing.  Remind yourself that you are busy realising something that is important to you. 

"Pre-design" for my next artwork

Depending on what one's approach to design/art is, creating what I like to call a "pre-design" before one actually starts producing the design can be very helpful in saving you loads of time. A pre-design is ideally done  quickly - it is left looking relatively unattractive and contains all of the important elements you envision seeing in the final work, such as layout ratios, representations of the elements that will be present, roughly sketched, but firmly in place. This is the ideal time to do your ratio-ing, as elements are flexible and changes, resizing, moving, adding, removing can be done quickly and painlessly. This stage also give you lots of freedom to find new inspiration, to simplifying and enrich the artwork. Knowing that this isn't the final artwork takes a lot of the mental blockages out of the way.

To produce the pre-design below, I first sketched the idea I had in mine, then I downloaded some free vectors of trees, created the art-board in the golden ratio, set up more ratio lines and plonked the trees on, and added a bit of rough color. The artwork can now be finalized, which will involve merging photos I took of grass and acorn trees into becoming a photo-realistic artwork resembling this scene.

The inspiration for this artwork: One day, a security guard at a building where I had my office told me to go sit behind his desk. Not really knowing what he was getting at, I did so... this was a surprisingly pleasant experience... In front of me I saw a very wide panoramic photo of a nature scene, stuck on the inside of the reception desk. The photo made me feel like I was out and about frolicking in nature. And this is why I am creating this artwork... to provide the viewer with that feeling that they are in nature, soaking in the sunlight, laying or walking on soft grass, surrounded by numerous shades spring fresh greens, and hugged by timeless, caring acorn trees.

Here's a snap-shot of the starting phase: