Know Your Onion

ABILITY Stevie Wonder once said: “We all have the ability, the difference is in how we use it” While the desire may be high your ability to achieve it may seem to be low. Sometimes you are unaware of just what abilities you do have. Many people have hidden talents; take programs like ‘American Idol’ or ‘Britains got Talent’ for example. A mild mannered Scottish singer walks tentatively out onto a brightly lit stage about to turn her ‘shower’ rendition of ‘I Dreamed a Dream’ into a full blown orchesteral production to be subjected to harsh criticism not only by a panel of judges but by millions of armchair critics around the world. The result? Wow she could sing! The accolades and millions of dollars that flowed in certainly warranted the risk and the possibility of failure; after all what was the worst that could have happened to Susan Boyle? Still there remains a element of self doubt within most of us, the only real way to find out what you have is to look at the task or challenge and evaluate your actions on the probability that you can succeed and if not what are the consequences of failure? If you analyse your position and break the elements of the task into components you can arrive at a fairly calcuable decision on your chances of success knowing with a degree of certainty, both your strengths and weaknesses in tackling the challenge. Importantly, if you come to the realisation that you lack ability in a necessarry area you can then shift the focus slightly while you investigate how to improve either your ability in the area you feel you are lacking in or where you can access the expertise and support. Firstly you would investigate whom or what does have what it is you need? Can you call on this as an accessible and reliable resource? Satisfying your ability does not mean you have to be the chief cook and the dishwasher too. Delegation, purchase of services, training sessions and a myriad of other helpers are out there to boost your ability and support you. Using media resources, looking for replica projects and studying their processes or picking their brains and ideas and finding good mentors with experience in what you seek all contribute to the abilities you will have. (Your ability in this context is to find them and use them). For this part of your examination into the process of turning a desire into reality you need to be realistic. The words, ‘might, maybe or perhaps’ are not strong enough language to drive you; there is an element of doubt echoing within them. Similarly contigency suggestions are unhelpful unless you go back and ensure the element of success is better than that of failure. The use of phrases such as “if X happens then Y might work” are not motivating enough unless you get a better idea of what X and Y are. This is not to say that before venturing into your project you should be 100% certain of success. Weighing positives against negatives should tell you that there is a more likely chance of success than not.