Hey guys! Its been awhile since I've written on the platform, things have been sort of choked up for me but they're a bit better now at least I have time to be typing right now. How have you been? Its another month. Was last month awesome for you? I hope it was. I hope you're closer to achieving your goals. Speaking of goals, let's hammer on this a little.
I don't know if you have been in a situation where you are doing something and you just stop for a minute to think and wonder, why am I doing this? What exactly am I doing? I don't know about you, but I've been in that place, and it's not a good one to be in.
It's totally human to have aspirations and goals, you would be considered abnormal to not have any. From birth we are conditioned to think of nothing but how to be successful in life, and in this light, success usually means to be wealthy, powerful and influential. Most believe any one of these will do, others believe to have one is to have others as one can get you the others, but almost everyone agrees to have all three, puts you at the top of the food chain. Do I agree? Maybe.
Having being conditioned to only see a future where we have these things, we are shown an elaborate, however differential system which we need to achieve this success depending on the kind of parents we have, the political, religious and economic environment we grow up in. As we grow older, this indoctrination carried out over the years gets to be reinforced, refined or replaced during our teenage years through the instruments of schooling, social media, mass communication, and peer pressure depending on how effective the indoctrination of our childhood days are.
Our way of thinking and life are formed in the image of these social interactions and indoctrination over the years. The motivational speaker will tell us to become this thing we want to be, which can take many form, but consist of the same basic elements (power, wealth, fame and affluence), we'll have to have goals and dreams, that we have to pursue these goals and dreams with everything we got once we are certain of them and stop at nothing until we get to achieve them.
I'm not against the desire for power, wealth, fame and affluence, of course I would love some. Neither am I against setting goals and chasing it passionately, let's be clear on that.
The problem arises when we are so passionate about a thing, that all we begin to see is the achievement of it, whatever it may cost. This creates a situation where we lose sight of the how, focusing only on getting the desired result.
There was a situation described by a user here on this platform in one of his article where a bunch of kids were asked to race with a spoon in their mouth on which an egg was placed. The person to successfully cross the finish line with the egg still on the spoon and sound was to be the winner. The lot of them raced away while these kid who was the smallest of them took his time. While the others were losing their eggs, these little guy though far behind was doing it slow and steady, interestingly he was the winner as he crossed the finish line with his egg still on his spoon.
What are the lessons?
1. Be realistic with your goals: One way of not losing sight of your goals is to set achievable and reasonable goals. Setting unrealistic goals will constantly lead to failure and frustration and a situation where one begins to settle for less or anything at all as they would have given up on their original goal.
2. Be patient: In a world where the media is awash with the quick and sudden success stories of many, it's hard not to feel left behind. This can cause people to feel like failures and make them go to extreme lengths to get what they want. This is a recipe for destruction. It's paramount we learn that everybody's timetable isn't the same, we all have our day, work diligently and your day will come and then it wouldn't matter how long, you will be celebrated too.
3. The process: The very passionate tends to be quite frustrated when it seems nothing is happening for them and sometimes because they are so bent on achieving a certain result, they dabble into any available avenue to get it, legal or not, they stop paying attention to the how as all that matters to them at that moment is the result, not the way it was achieved. As stated earlier, these can lead to unexpected and regretful endings.
4. Ensure your goals are yours: I know this is an interesting one. In the early stage of my life, what to study in school was really a hassle for me. I wanted to study medicine but when I wasn't given medicine, my folks wanted me to do a lot of things that they thought was better for me. Although this was already my second attempt, my siblings wanted me to try again and frankly I didn't want to. My elder brother wanted me to opt in for a nursing program and I was really battled then cos I was unsure of what choice to go with. But when I discovered What I wanted, my life took a U-turn as I began to see how much of a success I have been all these while and how much I love what I'm doing presently.
5. Define your success: Like I said before, due to the indoctrination that we experience over the course of our life, we begin to see things in a particular light, the way society expects things to be seen and done. We live by its rule and define everything by its standard and when we do achieve success by its standard and we are not the better for it, we basically lose touch with life really. This is why it is important you define what success is to you, as it's not really the same for any two person in practice. For you, success might mean a lot of money and for me, it's having a good family.
Closing thoughts
Bottom line is, set your own goals, define your own success, pace yourself, stick to your own time table, be patient and thou will have great success. When the topic of success come, think about yourself alone, but know not to achieve it at the expense of others, there's always a right way to get there. Above all, don't give up!
Thanks for reading.
Mhizutty the voice of truth🎵🎶🎵
