VICTORS CORNER

PUT YOUR THOUGHTS DOWN IN WRITING Part 2
By Victor Uyanwanne

In part 1 of this piece, we made the point that we should learn to write down our important thoughts whenever they cross our minds. Your important thoughts are the important ideas that come to you at any point in time. As you well know, good ideas don’t give any notice of when they come, neither do they tell you when they want to varnish. If you fail to write them down as and when they come, they may escape from you forever.

A notable international speaker, high profile pastor and accomplished Christian leader I know, once said that you could never find him without a pen and paper at any point in time. What he does is that he writes down any ideas that come to him at any time. That way, he keeps track of his important thoughts and also develops them further.

The revolution in ICT has made things easier; you don’t necessarily have to carry a pen and paper all around – if you don’t want to. I used to do that, but I found out that using my smart phone is indeed smarter, since I am always with it wherever I go. Using my phone I type my important thoughts or ideas as the need arises. I could also speak into the recording device embedded in the phone to record my voice. I have written some songs using this method.

Using my tablet, laptop and desktop computer has also helped me achieve the same purpose of concretizing my ideas. This article is an example of a recent thought I wrote down and later developed. I was sitting at my desktop doing other things when the thought to pen this discourse first filtered into my heart. I wrote it down immediately and referred to it subsequently for further development.

When you write down your thoughts, apart from you, other people benefit too. People cannot read your mind, but they can read your thoughts if you put them down in writing. Think about it, the beautiful ideas you have in your head will not profit humanity until you bring them out. The poems you have in your mind, write them out. Surely, someone will be blessed by it.

Many of the beautiful songs you have ever listened to began as thoughts. Great businesses around were once ordinary thoughts or ideas in the minds of their creators. In his book, Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill asserted, “Ideas rule the World.”

It is true that ideas rule the world. But if your idea must rule the world, you have to rule your ideas first. Ruling your idea, involves harvesting them from your mind into a concrete readable form. In other words, you rule your ideas by writing them down and working on them. That sound so simple but the meaning is very profound.

There are many advantages of writing down your thoughts. Permit me to use what I call the “C.R.I.M.E” principle to drive home the point. (We are not talking about any unlawful acts or misdeeds here, please). In this discourse, CRIME stands for Clarity, Reference, Improvement, Motivation and, Execution.

• Writing down your thoughts or ideas helps you clarify them.
• Writing down your thoughts or ideas gives you something to refer to subsequently.
• Writing down your thoughts or ideas affords you opportunity to improve on them.
• Writing down your thoughts or ideas can motivate you to carry them out.
• Writing down your thoughts or ideas gives you something to execute or act upon.

We will explore these areas in our subsequent posts.