Plan your life!

Planning is one very important part of our lives. It is said that if you fail to planning, you are planning to fail. From daily schedules to timetables, there are so many types of planning. Even though we all know life is very uncertain in the sense that only our Creator knows the future, we need to prepare ourselves and be organized for the days to come. Planning can also be a very interesting activity. I am a big fun of planning. Some people plan daily, others weekly and even annually but no matter how often you do it you need to have an ultimate life plan.

I asked a friend last week if she had a life plan and she looked at me as if I was from another planet. ‘I’m just 19 years’ she said. There is no age restriction when it comes to life planning. You see, a life plan is just a structured organization of events from the present to the future. It’s a map that shows how to get to your dreams, aspirations, objectives and achievements. This type of plan serves as a universal set to all other plans irrespective of how small they are. In other words all the plans you make come together to form your life plan.

One nice thing about a good life plan is that it keeps growing and changing as we ourselves grow. This is because life is simply unstable. Lots of people just give up planning when things don’t go their way. That is just wrong. Life plans should be strict but flexible. Once you start by knowing this, the easier you cope. You should know that you cannot control everything in your life but you are 100% in control of your life ‘plan’. Don’t let your plan control you! Here are a few tips for a successful life plan.

• Be as realistic as possible. Unreasonable goals or dreams will frustrate you when you can’t achieve them because you may not even come close.
• Take advantages of your resources. Identify what you are good at and work around that in our plan.
• Do not focus too much on one particular area. Make your plan all rounded. When you put all your energy in only one sector, you will lose out on the others.
• Be flexible especially with time. Deadlines can kill sometimes. You can use words like ‘soon, often and later’ when it comes to huge tasks and achievements. There is a time for everything.
• Revisit your life plan often. Make changes when you have to. When you miss an opportunity don’t take it out of your planning completely. For all you know a bigger and better chance will come your way.
• Write it down. Don’t just have your plan in your head. Put it down in black and white. It could be in a little notebook, on your computer or even on a poster on your wall.(pieces of paper are not the best)
• Do not let your plan control you. Just as you wrote it, you can change it so you don’t have to kill to get it done how it is. You should also know that it is only God that can make things go exactly as he wants it. Your life plan is just a way of preparing yourself for the future and making your decision taking easier.
• Put down the main things and not every single detail. This will keep your plan simple and create an illusion of it being easy to undertake. Making it lengthy might even scare you away.

These should help you put down your own special life plan. Make sure you follow it though, because a map that isn’t used is just a piece of paper. Bon chance!

ZediCross

Hi it's me again, lol. For the past seven months (since October) a couple of friends and I have been working on a fashion project. It was obvious we all like fashion and the idea of being able to create. Fashion design has been my interest for I don't even know how long and I realized it was about time I put my all (or close to it) into it. We came up with the name ZEDICROSS. This is a fusion of two, ideas, worlds, cultures and even genders. Zedi is my part which is part of my middle name Azedi. Cross is my current partners idea. He got the name cross from 'Jesus on a cross'. These two, Zedi and Cross lived individually several years ago, but now are one item.

Our clothes are creative in their own right. We gather ideas and inspiration from all over the world and display it in our works. The Ghanaian influence is very strong though and we are very proud of this. We produce clothes and accessories for both both genders such as shirts, trousers, skirts, dresses, bracelets, bags and earrings. We are hoping to have a complete range of clothes soon and are working very hard towards it.

We have been quite lucky to be part of a number of fashion shows in Accra, Ghana. These shows were very enlightening and exciting to be part of. We work harder and harder each day to make our dreams come true and it seems with the help of God we will get there.

We don't see ourselves as just designers who make clothes for sale but people who want to start a fashion family and all our fans feel just that!

The men who get the women

Just yesterday, I was watching a movie, can't remember the title though but it was about a woman who was working in a law firm. She was very intelligent and hot..most of the men wanted to date her for vaaaarious reasons. This made her build some form of wall so she doesn't get hurt. Being a beautiful top attorney made her fall prey to many oppurtunistic men. But at the end of the day, a man came and swept her off her feet. (not literally though) This got me thinking, (my imagination can go off on anything, trust me) are there 'some' men who get the women and some who just don't?

As much as I don't want to believe it, there are some guys who just get all the girls. They seem to know what to say and do to get a lady's attention and to make her feel special. I believe ladies know what they want and when it comes by they are good. But sometimes what comes by is even better than what they want so of course they will go for it.

This makes me wonder, are there women who get all the men too?

Fashion inspiration

Everybody whether they like it or not have a distinct style. Some are similar to others and some completely stand out. A person's style can be influenced by so many thing. Examples are the weather, where they live, the amount of money they have, their religion, their physique and lots more. There is also what I call the sandpaper effect where other people's fashion rubs off on you. It happens all the time, consciously and unconciously.

Some people pay a lot of attention to what they wear and how they wear it. Some people have specific themes for how they dress while others mix and match. The themes vary. They could be according to colour, religion, shape, length and so on. These themes can be used to define or describe their style. You may hear people say 'my style is bohemian chic, or African or even vintage.' They are merely fashion inspirations.

The fact that maybe your style does not have a definate name does not mean you don't have a fashion inspiration. It's either you have very many or you don't know what yours is called. lol. I for instance don't have one fashion inspiration. I like to mix and match so much based on how I feel. Some poeple may not know their style just because they don't pay much attention to it. I'm a big fan of art, fashion and style and as such it intrigues me to see different types of shapes and curves as well as the deeper feeling of it. I design clothes in my spare time. I know people who think designing clothes is easy but trust me there is nothing easy about it. I have met several people who said sewing is the most challenging part of making clothes and designing the clothes is a peice of cake.

I do not disagree with sewing being hard but designing isn't easy either. I'm not going to take you through the process because that will never let you see the real picture. All I can say is, when you are creating something for someone you can't just do what you like. There are a number of things you have to take into consideration. I'm sure somebody reading this is saying to themself 'isn't this thesame blog I read about going all out to be creative?' Yep, it's the same blog but this is a different issue. It's like looking at a shape from different perspectives; you will never see thesame thing. When you are designing clothes you are not creating the clothes in general (that was done millions of years ago) you are creating another way to wear them or another type. Here the basic idea of clothing must be present. When it comes to 'shapes, accessories, texture' and the like then you can go all out. (I hope my explanation is good enoough)

In several parts of the Western world, people get their fashion inspiration from celebrities and famous people. These 'stars' literally set trends for many to follow. I find this phenomenon quiet interesting and extremely easy. I mean think about it...the celebrities usually have a stylist who puts their clothes together (to fit THEIR body type) and other people watch and follow. This goes to the entent that some clothing shops make and sell clothes that look as close to what the celebrities wear as possible for sale.(Naturally at cheaper prices) So don't be surprised if you see three young ladies in thesame outfit (head to toe) at an event. It was probably rocked first by Beyonce! Don't get me wrong I'm not saying it's bad I'm just saying going the full length is very lazy.

I noticed that is Ghana, more people dress according to what they like or admire from anywhere. Don't get me wrong we do have trends but they last longer and the craze to dress in the latest trend has always been high as far as I can remember. The difference though is that trends can be set by anyone.(I'm working on my very own) From a beautiful lady at a wedding to a man crossing the street. I have never in my life seen a boutique in Ghana sell clothing styles that Jackie Appiah or Mzbel wears. Have you? I guess that is not part of our culture.

I believe fashion is a personal statement and whether you are rocking, be it 'old school' or vintage all you have to do is make it yours!

The creative battle

I just looked up the word creative and found this, 'producing new and orginal ideas and things;. It seemed a bit vague so I looked it up in another dictionary and found thesame thing. At that moment I realized that creativity was not what I thought it was all these years (I'm not that old, mind you) and I'm sure you will find this very interesting.

Let's give this a try. When the word creative is mentioned what comes into mind? Think of about five words related to or five best attributes to the word. Ideally it should be things like 'new ideas, different, change, peculier, on of a kind etc. but for some reason you might also think of 'nice, good, artistic, aesthetic, funtional'. This is skeewd towards the positive making the word seem as though it is a 'positive' thing. That's just something I have noticed which is not exactly in line with the definition which just talks about orginality.

One day I mentioned to a friend that I believe every human being is creative and he STRONGLY disagreed. Fair enough. His arguement was that if we are all creative why don't we all have inventions to our names? To him creativity is possessed by a select few. I was interested in his words but not surprised because I used to think in a similar way. I made my statement as clear to him as possible and this is what I said 'I think many people pay too much attention to the 'big ideas and creations' so much so that several other inventions pass them by.

Any one can come up with a new idea but first they have to take their minds off their society, environment and be in connection with themselves thus being original. Liberating themselves from the others and bringing out something from themselves. It is not that one cannot be creative. It is either they don't want to or don't know how to. Personally I think being yourself and doing things your way comes naturally but the problem sets in when there is a norm in doing things similar to yours and then you become NORMal and uncreative. So I think to be called creative, all you have to do is something outside the norm and you are there irrespective of it's beauty, usefulness or positive appeal.

Most people are not creative because they think too much about their surroundings or what will be said and I don't blame them. This is because some people's creativity has been insulted, critisized and even laughed at. At the end of the day it's your own 'eye tsroh' that makes you a creator. I believe God is the Ultimate Creator and we are to walk in his footsteps so why don't we?

If you conceptualize something, listen to yourself and let no walls prevent you from making it originally yours. Fight out the norm, forget how it is supposed to be and go all out! If some people didn't do that, you wouldn't be reading this right now.

My first post

I'm not used to the whole blogging thing but I've been writing for years so I think I can handle it just fine. Honestly I've always been scared of blogging because I feel you can put too much information on-line for the world to see. I guess I'll just have to be careful then.

This isn't one of those personal diary-like kind of blog (don't be dissapointed) but it's something I think will really help me and who ever is reading this. Not only are we all going to share ideas and learn from each other we just may change lives. (Don't know exactly how at the moment but we will see) I would love to hear your comments and if you also have a blog let me get the chance to read it (so i can steal ideas, lol).

Yea, so this is officially my first post! :) PS. just in case you are wondering....the baby picture is just a symbol of my 'newness' to blogging. You can call me a baby blogger for now. (very dry joke..i know)