Do you Love a Challenge?

 

                                                              Do you love a challenge?

Your perception around a challenge can determine what you do with it. What kind of attitude do you have towards the challenges around your life? If you ask many of us, they would rather live a life devoid of challenges. But is it possible or even worthwhile? The truth is it is impossible to live minus challenges. They are the fuel of life. It is also a mundane existence if there are no curveballs that need us to apply the best of ourselves.

Challenges create necessity. And necessity is the mother of all invention. There would be zero need for invention and innovation if there were no challenges. We advance as a race because of the constant need to deal with emerging challenges quickly enough.

Somebody had to encounter the challenge of moving swiftly from one place to another to be inspired to come up with the locomotive, the automobile and the aeroplane. Imagine what it would be like to still be travelling on foot over thousands of kilometers. Some other people thought about how inconveniencing it was to have to be in a fixed position to make calls across the world. This is how the world of cell phones came about. But that was not enough. We realized that there is a lot that we can do with a hand held device rather than just calling and texting. The need to do more with our hand held devices brought about the smartphone. The one thing that cuts across all these advancements is the presence of a challenge to be solved, a need to be met.

The best thing you can do for yourself is to fall in love with challenges. It guarantees that you will have an exciting, thrilling life. There is no greater thrill than to know you have worked on a challenge and put it to bed once and for all. Challenges make you constantly improve on your best self. Success is a journey of overcoming challenges and not just the final destination.

A life devoid of challenges is uninspiring and not something you want to constantly have. It has the potential to make you lethargic or numb. You run the risk to have a robotic experience of life which is the result of predictability. Such a life kills your imagination and creativity and leaves you high and dry. Cowards want to live where everything has been figured out for them. What kind of life is that?

Challenges do not have to be negative. Some challenges can be very positive in nature. You can create challenges for yourself for the purpose of pushing yourself to the next level. We must get into the habit of placing ourselves in situations where we crack our brains to come out of where we are stuck. Dr. Benjamin Hardy has an interesting way of looking at this. He calls them forcing functions. You need to start creating forcing functions all around you to push you further down the road. Not al your challenges need to be external and catch you by surprise. You need to get to the point where you are creating challenges for yourself and figuring them out in order to make good progress.

Think about things like making public commitments to get something done. The fact that the public is watching will spur you into doing the very best because you do not want your failure to be in the public domain. Another example of a forcing function is to get started down a road of no return. There are certain things you can do like jumping into the water which will force you to learn how to swim for survival. Many of us are capable of so much more in life but because there is no life or death situation facing us, we move at a leisurely pace. A little instability can help us adjust our pace and accomplish much more.

Challenges have a way of building our muscles. The more you encounter what you are unfamiliar with, the stronger you become both physically, mentally and psychologically. There is no shortcut to stronger muscles. The only way to strengthen is to engage in endurance training. David Goggins the renowned ex-NAVY SEAL says that our bodies start to shut down when we are only at 40 percent of their capacity in a bid to preserve themselves. The secret is to push through that resistance until you get to the other side. Once you overcome this initial resistance, you realize that you can go much further down the road.  

Question? What forcing functions are you going to apply on yourself going forward? What challenges have you been sidestepping that you are going to face going forward? I would like to hear your thoughts in the comments in this regard.

Challenges are not to be feared but embraced because in embracing your challenges, you embrace your future. Why would you run away from a better future? Your perception is much more important than the degree of challenge you are facing. If you see it as a way to grow and progress, that is exactly what it will be. If you see it as something to be avoided at all cost, then be ready for a mediocre existence at best. I am sure no one would choose a mediocre existence willingly but anytime you run away from challenges, you are slowly but surely drifting towards a mediocre life.

Would you like to learn more about being at home with challenges and how to make them work for you instead of against you? Hit me up on asenasam@gmail.com and let's talk. 

Feel free to also order a copy of my book Blessed to be a Blessing and learn more about why your experiences both good and bad, including pain are gold which you should embrace and extract value from. 

Goal Setting 2021

As we Approach 2021 for most of us it is a time to set new goals or resolutions. For others the New Year is not the best time to do this. Each camp has their own reasons. Whatever your thoughts are, I would like to encourage you to reconsider your approach to goal setting. This article will shed light on a different approach which you might want to consider next time you want to do this. 

Acceptable Goal Setting.

It has been preached to us that SMART goals are the way to go when it comes to setting goals. This has been the default approach for a long time. I have used it myself all the time I am setting goals. It is a very effective approach and some of what I am going to discuss here will still capture elements of the acronym. Let me get a few things out of the way first before I delve deeper into the discussion.

There is no changing the fact that goals must be specific. If they are not specific then they do not mean anything. They are just statements of intent. Goals must also be measurable meaning they must be quantifiable in terms of size and magnitude. I am also persuaded that goals need to be achieved within a particular set timeframe lest they become wish lists or someday items. I have a problem with attainable and realistic because they are limiting words. Goals need to stretch and scare you. Attainable and realistic mean if you stretch just a little bit you will be there. That does not excite me at all. 

Winner’s Goal Setting.

How does Grant Cardone approach his goal setting? In his book ‘The 10X Rule', he suggests setting goals 10times bigger than you normally do and be willing to do 10 times than you do. According to him, we set our goals too low and put in too little effort and end up disappointed. 

Goals need to excite us and pump up our blood. They need to scare us when we think about them and achieving them. It is when we are looking for average results and an average life that we set attainable and realistic goals. We tend to dabble in attainable and realistic because we want to fly under the radar. When you start talking big, there is no way you will fly under the radar. Everyone will be watching you. Some will even take it upon themselves to keep you accountable. The mockery you will receive from others will drive you even more. If your goals do not scare your peers, be prepared never to rise above them. 

Attainable and realistic goals guarantee that you will live beneath your potential. 95 percent of us live beneath what we are capable of. It is a case of poor stewardship of our abilities and if you are religious I bet it is sinful. Why would any of us want to live beneath our capabilities? 

The exciting way to do it is to set big goals. There is a need for a shift in mindset from us so that setting big, scary goals becomes the norm. There are many reasons for this. What we think we need turns out never to be enough courtesy of the many variables that come about. When this happens, only those who had outsized goals will weather the storm. Big goals provide enough motivation for you. They inevitably make you realize that you have to step up your activity levels. Big goals hold our attention. When they are small or attainable with little effort, we tend to lose focus and drift into other more exciting things. The bigger and more unrealistic goals are and the more aligned they are to your purpose, the more they’ll energize and fuel your actions according to Grant Cardone.

If you must follow the examples of others, then be careful about those you choose to follow. You have a responsibility to set your goals against the benchmark of those who have achieved massive success. This way the goal is so scary you are almost sure you won’t attain it. Anytime you think your goal is easily within reach, the goal is not big enough.

As you do it, realize you have been raised, educated and conditioned by restrictions. You are more conscious of what you can’t do than what you can do. From our parents to our teachers, we have been taught to think in terms of limits, to be real. Whenever we looked like going too far out of line, we were punished and brought back into the fold. We have been taught moderation which isn’t a bad thing but still comes as a limiting mindset. It is possible even your environment at work tells you to play it cool. Maybe they sneer at the very idea of ambition. With a history of limited thinking, your default approach is ‘I need to be realistic.’ This means that a lot of times we are capable of so much more. Keep this in mind as you set your own goals so that you are challenged to target higher.

Advantages of Unrealistic Goals

They help us exploit our potential more often than not. Using up our potential is often a hit and miss kind of thing. One of the surest ways to improve our odds is to set unrealistic goals and commit to massive action to realize them. 

They also have a greater reward. If I achieve 30 percent of a small goal and 30 percent of a big goal in the same area, the results and rewards are surprisingly different.

Big goals motivate. We need to be in pursuit of big things to remain focused throughout the journey.

They also cushion you from inevitable shocks. When you achieve massive success, you stand a better chance of conquering shocks that come your way from whatever quarters. 

What will you do with your current goals? Are they big enough? Do they need a fresh look? What about your team’s goals? What is your takeaway from this post? Share in the comments below.

If you need someone to walk you through setting and tracking your goals going forward, feel free to DM me or comment below. 

Share Widely.

Work it Out

The book of Philippians 2: 12-13 is a good place to start this conversation on working out your salvation. Here is what it has to say.

Therefore, my dear ones, as you have always obeyed [my suggestions], so now,
not only [with the enthusiasm you would show] in my presence but much more
because I am absent, work out (cultivate, carry out to the goal, and fully complete)
your own salvation with reverence and awe and trembling (self-distrust, with serious
caution, tenderness of conscience, watchfulness against temptation, timidly shrinking
from whatever might offend God and discredit the name of Christ).
13[Not in your own strength] for it is God Who is all the while effectually at work in you
[energizing and creating in you the power and desire], both to will and to work for His
good pleasure and satisfaction and delight.

While this scripture is specifically focused on believers living their lives in such a way as to do right with regard to honoring God and fulfilling his will, there is more to it than what we see. I would like to look at its broader application in the course of this article.

First it is important to note that the premise for this requirement is what God has already done. This is the way it always works. First, God invests in you then he seeks the return. He will never seek a return where he has not invested.

God works in you as we see in verse 13 to have both the willingness and the ability to do what He is asking for in verse 12. There are two things which stand in the way of someone who wants to do something good. For some it is a lack of willingness. You lack the drive, the impetus, the motivation to go out and do something. The second challenge we see is the ability. In a world where the default setting is for us to do wrong, it takes superhuman ability to go out and do the right thing. God takes care of both issues and positions us where we have all it takes to work things out.

If we are to look at its broader application, this scripture is encouraging us to make the most of God’s supplied graces upon our lives. There are many investments God has put in us, many things he has endowed us with. We have talent, abilities, gifts and so much more that is already resident in us. The question becomes what to do with it all. If you look deep within yourself you realize that there is a lot that lies unexploited. Working it out is about choosing to bring it all to the fore.

Your endowments help no one when they stay hidden or under the radar. They only find their significance when they are given room to shine through. Our job as we live this side heaven is to ensure that all our reserves are deployed for the benefit of all. We must endeavor to tap into all our reservoirs of energy to ensure that we are not living anything unutilized or underutilized.

When we fail to work out our potential, we are guilty of one or all three things. We are either misusing, underusing or not using at all. John C. Maxwell says where purpose is unknown, abuse is inevitable. Therefore there is a number of things we need to do if we are to get to the point where we are fully making use of what we have at our disposal. These three things are the heart and soul of what we do at Optimize Institute. I will briefly go into them as we come to a close of this article.

I call them the 3D’s of your potential and they stand for Discover, Develop, Deploy.

The first task you have as an individual if you are to work out your potential is to discover it. You cannot exploit what you don’t know. Your eyes must be open to what you have lying within you if you will have a chance to exploit it. That awareness is critical. You need to look deep within yourself as you also search the scriptures to get a clearer understanding of what lies within you. I am of the persuasion that the God who made you understands clearly what is wired within you much like automotive engineers know what lies under the hood of a supercar. There is therefore no better place to start looking than to consult with Him in prayer and in His word. He could give greater meaning to your experiences than what you thought possible. He can weave a good narrative out of the chaos of your life than you could come up with by yourself. Discovery is not complete without the involvement of the divine.

Secondly you must develop that latent power lying within. There is a lot that your gifts need before they can shine through. I always say, you must look at your gifts as diamonds in the rough. There is a process through which they are taken before they are ready to make beautiful ornaments. That process is what we are calling development. Development requires that you go through the fire and the water. It will call for you to endure the ups and downs of life, there will be highs and lows at every turn. Sometimes you will feel like quitting along the way because the heat is too much. At other times you will wonder whether it is all worth it. The process of development is no walk in the park but it is a necessary component of the journey to bringing it all to the fore.

Finally you are ready for deployment. After all the ups and downs, the time is right for you to be made manifest to the world. Many times, the people see you and marvel at what has happened overnight. While it feels like an overnight success to them, for you who has gone through the process, it’s been tedious beyond explanation. At the point of deployment you are up for celebration. Everybody wants to be associated with you. Even those who were on the sidelines want to find a way to show solidarity with you. They say failure is an orphan but success has many fathers. You must learn to take it in your stride because there is nothing much you can do to change people.  To work it out means you have endured the process of development and allowed yourself to reach the limelight. The Joy of deployment far exceeds the pains of development every time. It is much like how for the joy of holding her baby in her hands, the mother forgets all the pain of childbirth.

No matter what stage you are at in the process, remain focused on the final goal which is to see the fruit of all your labor. The reward is not for those who quit along the way. It is reserved for those are ready to go all the way to the top. They say the air at the top is pure because the top is less crowded. If you want to enjoy that kind of air, then you have your job cut out for you. Beyond the reward however, do it from a sense of duty and responsibility because one of my favorite quotes is that ‘The world, God and you need the best of you expressed.’ When you fail to show up, everybody suffers. Therefore show up for the good of everyone who is waiting on you. 

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Improve on your best

 

Get into the habit of pushing the boundaries of what you can handle. Everything around us evolves constantly. What was great yesterday is considered trash today. The people who will remain relevant must change with the changing times and circumstances. While you rest easy enjoying your success, your problems are evolving. Improvement is required just to maintain your position before you even think of taking steps forward.

If you are in business, you will realize that your competitors are working very hard to close the gap between you and them. If you don’t work on getting better at what you are doing you will soon find yourself as a success story of the past. I constantly refer to smartphone manufacturers as the greatest example of improving on your best. For the better part of the decade 2001-2010, Nokia was the king when it came to manufacturing cutting edge phones that always surprised us with what they were capable of doing. At some point it looked as though they had a new phone out every week. Word has it that they had the technology to produce the first smartphones but they slept on it concluding for some reason that the world was not ready for this kind of technology. Since that time, it has never been the same for them again. The moment they missed the bus, they started going downhill. Several attempts later and they still can’t boast of any significant market share in the smartphone business despite having some great options along the way. Contrast that with what has happened at Apple and Samsung. People are so invested in what these two companies produce, that they line up well in advance to get their hands on the latest iteration of their flagship devices. They are sure to sell millions of devices across the globe every year. The thing that keeps them at the top of people’s minds is the fact that they come with the latest technology available. Their R and D teams have little time to celebrate the success of what came out last year. They almost immediately go back to asking themselves: what can we offer the market next year to beat what they currently have in their hands? In short they are keen on improving on their best.

In his acceptance speech for an Academy Award, Actor Matthew McConaughey made an outstanding statement that reflects what it means to improve on your best. He said that his hero is always 10 years ahead of him. In essence his hero is who he is going to be ten years from now. That means he is always chasing a better version of himself. The way he sees himself now as great as it is, he knows that his future self, is bound to be better than his present self and that is why he keeps chasing his hero. Another example from the incredible Dr. Benjamin Hardy is from onetime Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice. Her mantra is that she never refers to herself as the ‘Former’ anything. She focuses much more on what the future has in store for her that she has no time to get lost in thinking of who she was in a former role. That right there is the thinking of someone who is given to doing better and focusing on the improvement they can still reach rather than any greatness in their past.

However well you are doing at the present moment, it is important to realize that you are still a work in progress. You must constantly keep your eyes open to see the opportunities accorded you for improvement and to do better. That is the basis for living a great life. I am a strong proponent of living optimally and constant improvement can never be separated from the pursuit of an optimal life. The fact that you are excelling today should keep you on your toes. At some point, you are no longer in the zone of competing with others. Your competition becomes the pursuit of beating who you were yesterday. Grant Cardone in his masterpiece The 10X Rule has a chapter on Competition where he says that your goal needs to be domination rather than competition. He says that while others are pursuing best practices, you need to be in a place where you are pursuing ‘only practices.’ By the time you reach here, you are not only improving constantly on your best self but playing in a one man league where you are constantly assured you will win.

Would you do with someone to hold your hand in the pursuit of improving on your best? If your answer is in the affirmative, then talk to me on +254725832477/ samuelmwinamoa@gmail.com

Your Best Foot Forward

Do your best

If you are going to achieve excellence in big things, you develop the habit in little matters. Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude.     

Colin Powell

Aim to work at the peak of your abilities. Excellence is the mark of someone who wants to be at the top of their game in whatever area of life. It is a lofty ambition that shouldn’t be taken lightly. A majority of the people are comfortable with good enough. Little do we realize that good enough keeps us from the best. Nobody is called to do just good enough. We are required to constantly put our best foot forward.

If you had a choice between two doctors  or service providers in whatever industry and you got to know that one gives exceptional service while the other one does just the bare minimum., is there doubt about who you would want to serve you?

Excellence is a virtue espoused in God’s word. God’s word tells us Colossians 3:23 Whatever you do whether in word or deed, do it with all your heart. Do it as unto the Lord and not as unto men. I do not care what your religion is or who you hold in the highest esteem. One thing I know is that you will always give the best when dealing with that person you esteem highly. Assume that you are serving the President of your Republic, doesn’t it go without saying that you will want to give your very best? Now that should be your attitude and approach irrespective of who you are serving. You need to be known for the thoroughness with which you do things. Resist the temptation to be average or at worst mediocre. Instead endeavor to deliver great results every time you are tasked with something. Make excellence your trademark and you will never run out of people to serve.

So what is excellence if we are to delve deeper into the conversation?

Dictionary.com defines excellence as the fact or state of excelling; superiority; eminence. Among the synonyms given for the word excellence are preeminence, distinction, transcendence, merit and virtue.

The Collins dictionary defines it as the state or quality of excelling or being exceptionally good; extreme merit; superiority. We are talking about something being of high quality.

The idea is that to pursue excellence means you are not willing to settle for the ordinary. You are committed to giving that which is outstanding and beyond expectation. You are not here just to participate, you are here to excel. Upon you is the ability to be the very best at what you do. Most of the time, we just haven’t made up our minds that we want to excel. Some of us do not want to commit to excellence because it can be very demanding. When you think about it though, you realize that a lot of the hurt we see around us is because somebody chose to be sloppy about their job. A lousy father or mother will bring up children who are a problem to the society. A sloppy engineer will oversee projects that will collapse and cause injuries or loss of life. A doctor who does just good enough will inevitably lose patients who would have survived if handled better. A lousy teacher/lecturer will churn out half-baked graduates who need extra training before they are useful in the marketplace. I could go on and on but I know you get the picture. Think about the consequences of doing your job minus that pursuit for excellence. Who is likely to suffer? What is likely to go wrong? When you answer these questions honestly, you will ditch your pleasure and begin to put your best foot forward.

In a world of extreme competition, an excellent approach to anything you are doing sets you apart from the crowd. Anyone who excels at what they do, has people beating a path to their door. I saw someone comparing what Cristiano Ronaldo earns to what scientists and researchers earn and feeling that there is a discrepancy. The argument was: what is the value that Ronaldo brings compared to what scientists can do with regard to finding solutions to COVID 19? The feeling was that what the researchers do is highly valuable and they should be compensated more. I agree with this reasoning to a certain extent but I have a different view as well. Whereas everybody needs to be compensated well and relative to their contribution, there is also the reality that in every field some people stand head and shoulders above the rest. For every Cristiano Ronaldo, there are thousands of footballers who are struggling to make ends meet. In the same breath for the thousands of poorly remunerated researchers there are a few who earn very highly. The reason is that they are perceived as highly valuable in their respective fields. One of the things that increases your perceived value in the marketplace, is the excellence with which you carry out your duties or responsibilities. You see Ronaldo excels at entertaining football fans with what he can do on the field of play. Truth be told we rank entertainment very highly; perhaps more highly than we ought to but it is what it is. Those scientists who earn more than others also have something outstanding about them. And I argue that among other things, they execute their roles with a spirit of excellence which is a tall order for a majority of those who complain about discrepancies. To put it lightly, for every Kempinski, there are thousands of Kibandaskis. People choose Kempinski because of the attention to detail and what goes into delivering that experience. It’s not about the food per se because it’s no different at the Kibandaski, it’s the quality of the delivery that determines where people flow to.

Excellence is a journey. You must make up your mind that you will not give anything less than the best every single day as you step out. You do not have to wait for anything or anyone. You must start right where you are in your pursuit for excellence. If you want to achieve excellence, you can get there today. As of this second, quit doing less-than-excellent work. Thomas J. Watson.

Like breathing, you need to cultivate it until it becomes second nature. The more you work at it, the more you will see room to get better. When you become complacent, you lose your ability to improve and settle for something less than the best.

Excellence brings with it a number of benefits including an increase in your confidence and self-esteem. There is an appreciation you have for yourself when you know you gave your best to your tasks. It also earns you recognition and praise. You cannot hide excellent work. It has a way of rising to the top. People take note of anyone who is going above and beyond. With recognition comes reward and promotion. Opportunities keep flowing in the way of those who are excelling at their current station. Excellence glorifies God. When we do well, it reflects well on our Creator because we have brought the best attributes within us.

I will wrap it up with a quote from Aristotle. ‘Excellence is never an accident. It is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, and intelligent execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives - choice, not chance, determines your destiny.     

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You want to go deeper into the excellence conversation? Hit me up on WhatsApp +254725832477 or Email: samuelmwinamoa@gmail.com

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Take Charge of Your Time

 

Make the most of today

 Did you know that time is the most finite resource you have? That no matter how hard you try, time once lost can never be recovered? Did you know that the secret of the ultra-wealthy is that they leverage time by making others work for them thereby multiplying their productivity?

What do you do with your time? How do you extract maximum value for your time every single day? Let’s cut to the chase. What do you intend to do today or what are you doing today to optimize the utilization of the valuable resource that is time.

In this article, I will share a few tips on how to make the most of your day every day. 

The English say time and tide wait for no man. So how do we go about ensuring that we stay on top of things when it comes to time?

The first thing you must do is determine how much time you have to work today. From the time you wake up to the time you intend to sleep there is a number of hours available for you to do what needs doing today. Not all your waking hours will be spent working. There is time to prepare, travel, eat and so on. What time is left-when you subtract everything else-for you to work on what needs to be done. When you get clear on how much time you have, you can allocate yourself the tasks and how they will be spread out through the day.  

Gather the tools you need. To avoid wasting too much time unnecessarily, make a point of gathering the tools you need for the tasks ahead of you in advance. If you can leave your ‘office’ the previous evening with the tools you need to start off the next day, the better. If that is not possible, then you must create time early in your day to put every tool and requirement in its place because it will save you precious minutes along the way.

Start early you must develop the habit of getting started as early as possible on your tasks. There is a burst of energy available in the morning that must be spent on your most significant tasks of the day. For a majority of us, thinking creatively occurs best early in the morning when the mind is still fresh from sleep and unoccupied with a million things. There are exceptions to this of course and I recognize that but by and large, we find ourselves falling into this category. It is also less noisy in the morning and you can really make quick progress on challenging tasks before the noise of the day kicks in. Starting early also reinforces the discipline of rising up early which in itself boosts your levels of confidence making you capable of so much more.

Define your deliverables. What are your deliverables? What are those things that must be done today for you to consider your day a success? What kind of outcomes or output do you want to see from your day today? When our expectations are defined we are much more likely to focus on accomplishing them as opposed to when they are vague. If you aim at nothing you always hit it with precision. This is because for you any outcome is acceptable. To avoid falling into this trap, it is wise that you have clarity on what you want from your day and ask/go for it unashamedly.

Prioritize. Beyond knowing your deliverables, ask yourself which among them is most significant to you. Which of them must rise to the top of the pile. You want your most important and urgent items at the top of your list. These are tasks that you must see to personally because their accomplishment has a great impact on your long term interests. Next on your list must be the important but not urgent. This can come later in your day after you are done with tier 1 items. The third tier is urgent but not important. These kind of tasks you can do only after the first two but in case you have little to no time, then my next tip applies. The not urgent and not important can as well be thrown into the garbage can because you have no business doing anything that has no bearing on the future.

Delegate. I mentioned above that the ultra-wealthy know how to leverage time to get more done. It goes without saying that when you have so much to do and limited time-as is so often the case-delegation becomes your friend. You need to find a person competent enough to do the tasks that you can’t find time to or the tasks that are not very high value but still necessary for the smooth functioning of everything else. Just like organizations outsource non-core functions, individuals must learn to delegate non-core responsibilities so that they spend more of their time on those core tasks. (Offer a local workplace for mundane tasks)

Eliminate distractions. The challenge of living in our connected world is that there can be so many texts, emails, DMs, tweets and much more that are keen on stealing our precious time. I am sure you can relate to that time when you told yourself I will just check this one update and then continue doing what I was doing before. How you ended up spending the next 20-30 minutes on FB is anyone’s guess but the thing is that the little update just cost you half an hour of time you would have accomplished much. Distractions can also come from people who want to pop in time and again to catch up, say hi and all those seemingly harmless things we do daily. Maybe a DND note on your door would send the message to any potential catch-up colleagues. Do you need to put your notifications off within a certain timeframe? Is it worthwhile to put your phone on silent mode? What do you need to do to eliminate distractions? Just go ahead and do it. (Suggest tools that can be used to eliminate distractions)

Schedule Email and Social Media times. Because you must eventually come to the point where you need to look at your emails for important updates, go ahead and schedule a set time every day to look at them. In this time ensure you respond to all pending queries and requests. There is no crazy urgency when it comes to emails. If there was, the concerned party would have called to tell you to check out his email. Because also of our social nature, it is important to create time within your day for social catch up both on and offline. There is nothing wrong with looking at your Twitter when you have scheduled it. A little chatter over tea break will not hurt your productivity by a long shot. Socialize.

Keep your focus till the task is done. Build your ability to focus on one task until it is done. Do not be a touch and go kind of person because at the end of the day, you find yourself with too many projects hanging in the balance and it begins to stress you. Discipline yourself enough to say this is what I set out to do and no matter how challenging it gets, I am going to stay on course until it is done. You must refuse to be thrown off balance by little setbacks in the course of your day.  

Pair up activities. Another secret of getting more out of your day is to pair up activities that can be done concurrently. Think about listening to a podcast or an audiobook while driving from one point to another. Or using your lunch break as an opportunity to catch up with a friend or a prospect. A drink in the evening does not have to be a solitary affair. You can pull a friend or two and have a meaningful conversation in the course of your unwinding.

Automate. If any of the tasks you need to do can be automated, do the honorable thing and invest in an automated system to do the task for you. We have a lot of intelligent machines that can do some of our work better than us. We need to be ready to let them do it so that we can be employed in higher value tasks that need human ingenuity. We are entering the age of the autonomous car. That can only mean one thing. That you have more time on your hands to do things on the go like reading a book, having a meeting, making calls and so on. Take advantage of all the advancement in technology to free up more time for yourself. (Sell Automated solutions for tasks)

Catch your breath in between tasks. It is advisable to take a moment or two to catch your breath as you move from one task to the next. Taking a deep breath or stretching your limbs a little bit helps to keep you alert. Some people give themselves a power nap which could be as short as five minutes and they feel rejuvenated to go on with the rest of their day. Whatever you need to do, do it to refresh your mind especially after a mentally taxing task. There is a productivity technique known as the Pomodoro where you engage intensely in the task at hand for about 30 minutes then take a break before you go again.

What hacks are you applying in your own life when it comes to time? What have you learnt from this article that you will incorporate into your management of time? Let me know in the comments below. 

Would you like to delve deeper in this conversation on Time Management? If your answer is yes, reach out to me on samuelmwinamoa@gmail.com or +254725832477. 

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Dealing with your past

 

Whether it was a successful one or a failure. Whether you are proud of it or not, your past is the past.

I have come to the conclusion that we are all nostalgic about the days gone by. Why is it that we can’t seem to disentangle completely from the past? Is it even necessary to break with the past? What benefits lie in having a clean break with your past? In this article we will tell you why holding on to your past is a burden too heavy to bear and what you should do about your past. 

Everyone has a past that is as unique as they themselves. There are great and memorable moments in your past just the same way you have some not so pleasant experiences you can go on and on about. You cannot run away from the past that you have. What you can do is celebrate it, learn from it or put it in the back burner of your mind. 

Some of your gratitude must be informed by what has happened in your past. You have many pleasant memories of what the past was like. For such memories there is need for you to reflect with gratitude because they represent the good times of your life. They must never be diminished in your sight irrespective of what is happening presently. They should be used to put perspective into your thinking. They must remind you-even if things are very thick presently -that one time they looked good. Your great experiences of the past can help you stay hopeful in the face of adversity when you remember that you had victories to savor. They can give you confidence as you look to the future when you remind yourself that there was victory for you in the past and there is therefore an opportunity for future victory.  Your past victories are a shot in the arm. They can keep you optimistic and motivated. David is one man in the Bible who used this kind of thinking for ongoing victory. In remembering how God had helped him deal with the lions and the bears which had attacked his flock in the wilderness, he knew and believed it was possible to conquer Goliath. He faced Goliath with a confidence born out of his past victories. We too must think like David in our response to the challenges we are facing currently. We must look to the past for inspiration and reassurance that we’ve got this.

Your unpleasant memories serve the role of reminding you where you do not want to go back to. They can remind you of the wrong choices you made in your past. They will keep you grounded and help you take a more measured approach to issues in the future. Once beaten, twice shy. The questions you should be asking yourself from your unpleasant experiences are: what lessons can I learn from what I went through? Where did I go wrong? What happens when I face a similar situation in the future? Those who fail to learn from their past mistakes are bound to make them over and over again and suffer compounded losses as a result. You must develop the habit of milking all your experiences for what they are worth. Do not allow any experience of yours go to waste just because it was negative. You owe it to yourself to distill the valuable lessons embedded in your bad experiences. This guarantees you growth, progress and a better future.

At other times the best reaction to your past is to leave it in the past. After you have extracted the lessons and expressed gratitude for your past, it is best to leave it where it belongs. If not it has the potential to become a massive weight on your shoulders.  This can take two broad forms.

First it can make you complacent because you choose to revel endlessly on how great the past was. There are people who still talk about how great they were 20 years ago but have nothing to write home about today. Whereas it is not bad to look at the past with nostalgia, if that makes you absent from the present then it is robbing you of your life. You can be grateful for the past as you work to create many more pleasant memories. Celebrating the past should not be a hindrance to building something good today. Imagine what would happen if the world got stuck in the industrial revolution. How much progress would we have made today? When you remain stuck in your past accomplishments, you rob yourself of the chance to do something better, something more. There is much more land to be conquered, much more territory to be taken. Celebrate but be quick to go on to the next one because therein lies progress. 

The past can also be a burden when you choose to wallow in its lowest moments. Just because you messed up at some point does not mean your whole life is defined by that one moment. There is a huge danger when we allow our traumatic experiences of the past to become the defining moments of our lives. If it takes professional counsel to help you break free from your trauma, failure, loss or whatever is holding you back, by all means go ahead and get it because your life will remain static for as long as you don’t deal with those aspects of your past. Many people have short circuited their lives and rendered themselves ineffective because they refused or couldn’t find the help needed to break from their past. 

Do any of these scenarios define you? Are you stuck because of an over the top experience and wondering where else to go from here?  Let’s talk managing success. Are you finding it hard to move forward from a particularly taxing experience? Is that something you would want to talk about? Let me find you the right help by commenting on this post or sending me a DM on +254725832477. 

A fresh Start

A fresh Start

Is there ever an age where you should just give up and stop trying to make changes in your life? Have you gone too far that there is no room for back tracking? Is it too late to rewrite the story of your life?

These are questions we grapple with all the time as long as we live. In this article, we will think through these questions and see what options we have in this regard.

You can approach this life in a number of perspectives and each bears great implications and it is therefore very important that you choose the right perspective.

There are those who approach life as victims. They believe that life just happens to them and they have no control over any aspect of it. They cannot see what they could do differently to change the outcome of their lives. They believe in a fate that has been sealed which they can only live by. Such people will not attempt to make any amends. They will let everything flow as it comes

Others will live with the understanding that though life happens, they can do something about it. They do not deceive themselves that they have ultimate control, but they do all what is within their power to order their lives in a particular direction. They have a victor’s perspective. Which perspective would you want to live with as an individual?

I would choose the victor’s mentality any day of my life because it keeps me hopeful that there is something I can do about what is going on with me right now. For you to have the impetus needed to rewrite your story, you must first believe that it is possible. The idea that you have zero control must be banished from your mind. The same way you must also banish the notion that you will sit back and do nothing as you wait on God to do it for you. More often than not God provides the means but He still expects you to rise up and do it yourself. He provides guidance but it is your role to respond obediently.

After you have come to terms with who you are, if you don’t like who you are, or if you can improve on who you are then the next step is to start making adjustments as is required of you. Never for one moment think that you have run out of time. For as long as you woke up today, you must live your life with the realization that today you can take even one step to correct your reality. What matters most is not the big leaps you take to reverse your movement. It is the baby steps that build you the momentum you need for the big leap. Without focusing too much on how far you have gone or fallen, the question should be what you can do today to reverse the trend. You must always scan your surroundings to identify the wiggle room you have and make the most of it. If a hand is all you can move, by all means go ahead and move it. If you have the chance to take two steps do not think about the ten you cannot take.

The moment your eyes open up to the reality that your life is not what it ought to be, it is time to rewrite your story. It is time to paint a new picture of yourself. Understand that there is room to start over again. An addiction is not a death sentence. You can reverse the trend. An extravagant lifestyle is not in your DNA you can get rid of it. And even if it is found in your DNA, there is room for gene editing to end up with the desired make up. What pieces of your life can you get a hold of? What you need to do is quickly gather them together and begin to build something beautiful out of them. From ashes comes such beauty as no one thought possible. All it takes is a heart that believes and a mind that is ready to go to work and make these things a reality.

Do you feel the need to rebuild your life? Do you think you need a fresh start? Would you do with a helping hand in this regard? Respond in the comments and we will continue this conversation. You  can also reach me on +254725832477

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Your best Treat

The best gift for you-Self Awareness

Happy New Month! What are you grateful for concerning the last 9 months? what are you looking forward to this month and last quarter of 2020? 

Today's article is on a topic close to my heart-self awareness. There can be no genuine attempt at Optimizing your life before self-awareness. We build from the known into the unknown.

How well do you know yourself? What are your core competencies? Limitations? Areas of improvement? Gifts/talents? How do you make use of all your endowments?

Self-awareness is the beginning of living your life. Before you understand yourself, you live at a very shallow level at best. At worst you live a fake inauthentic life that is nothing close to who you really are. The saddest thing that can happen to you is for you to live ignorant of who you are. It is a travesty to the world and yourself.

When we fail to take the time to understand ourselves, what happens is that we live life by someone else’s script. We quickly bend to the opinions and preferences of others. We are left trying all manner of things all of which don’t work and leave us frustrated. The key to a peaceful, guided and contented life is to know yourself. There are no struggles to fit in for those who know themselves and are comfortable in their own skin. You do not need to fit in with the acceptable script. You are called upon to bring your unique signature onto the things you do and this is only possible when you know what that signature is.

The world around you does not need more of the same. We are where we are because our collective thinking has brought us this far. This same thinking cannot take us further than where we are. We must embrace new thought patterns that will elevate us to a whole new level. When you fail to embrace your uniqueness, you keep all of us stuck where we are.

So how self-aware are you? Your whole life this far has been making you and preparing you for this moment. Nothing has happened by chance. What can you gather from your unique experiences, upbringing, education, interactions, connections and so on that you have been taking for granted. No experience is worthless whether negative or positive. If only you can learn to look at it from a different perspective, you might just realize that in each experience lies a lesson or lessons that can serve you far much better in your current station in life.

Have you taken the time to understand your gifts and special abilities? Are you conversant with your talents? You will never exploit what you don’t know. Precious stones and minerals rarely stay on the surface. They are buried deep within layers and layers of soil. This is why you cannot discover your gifts when you live at a shallow level. There is need to dig deep and staying still plays a critical role in this regard.

In our busy world that is always in a hurry, taking time off seems to be a foreign idea. We find it strange to put off our phones and televisions, gadgets and gizmos and that is why we are just coasting through life. We live in a world where we’d rather pass time binge-watching Netflix series than connecting with our true selves. This is a sure recipe for an ignorant existence.

We need to take back our lives by all means possible. We need to ask deep penetrating questions of ourselves. We need to seek understanding of why we are here? We must answer those philosophical questions that have no quick answers. We need to connect with the one who made us and it requires a stillness that is unheard of in our busy world. We need the calmness deep within if we will open our eyes to what lies in there. This is much more important than anything you can do if you are interested in living that authentic life.

You also need to do it as a matter of urgency seeing as there is no point living ignorantly. The faster you can get around to understanding yourself the better for you because you have a longer time frame to live your life authentically. Imagine living a life that flows out of the deepest part of you from the days of your youth. There is nothing more fulfilling than this.

Becoming fully aware of yourself or living consciously is the best gift you can give yourself today. 

Beyond knowing who you are, part of self-awareness involves knowing where, when and how you are. There is need to figure out where you are in life in each and every area. You cannot begin to make any adjustments in your life until you are clear on where you currently stand. The key to this kind of awareness is to place yourself in front of the mirror and scrutinize the details of where you stand. There is a deep need for honesty in this regard if you will make any meaningful change. You have to truly tell yourself I have made this amount of progress for two major reasons. First it shows how much gratitude you need to live with every day and secondly it gives you a clearer picture of how much further you have to go. A good example is to have a look at your current finances. What is your current financial position? How much do you make regularly? What constitutes your recurrent expenditure? What is the exact amount you spend on each line item? Where are the opportunities for you to salvage something? Where can you make an extra coin? These kind of questions force you to have a good hard look at yourself and to make the necessary changes. There is no better transformation other than that which comes from a point of intimate knowledge about yourself.

Ask yourself which dispensation you are living in. it is important to know when you are living. Without that, you end up applying the tactics of the Stone Age in this 21^st century. When you live has a strong influence on how you live. What used to be so far removed from the common man 50 years ago, is very much within his reach today. What does it mean to live in a world where we can do all our computing on a hand held device? We have entered the dispensation of artificial intelligence. You must ask yourself how you will live in this dispensation. How can I take advantage of the time in which I live to accomplish much more than I thought possible? It is about making the most of the time in which you live. Esther 4:14-Who knows whether you came to the kingdom for such a time as this?

The next question is kind of cliché because we have talked about it ever since we knew how to converse. It is the question how are you? Many of us by default answer ‘I am fine.’ That is the answer you can give a stranger without much thought but when you are in the process of knowing yourself, you must go into the nitty-gritty of answering this question. You must delve into what areas are doing great in your life and what areas are ailing. You must use as much detail as possible to describe what it is that is currently happening in your life. So the next time someone asks you how you are, beyond giving them that short cliché answer, take it as an opportunity to really look at yourself and describe what you see. It can be a very daunting task. Not many people have the guts to look at themselves introspectively. This is because it reminds them of their humanity and how much work they still need to do on themselves. The picture is very ugly sometimes but someone has got to do it if they want to change what they will look like tomorrow. 

Was this article helpful? Let me know how helpful it was for you in the comments below.

In my book Blessed to be a Blessing I answer the question of who you are from the perspective of Your endowments. You can check out it's intro by following the link below. 

amazon.com/author/samuelmwinamo 

While here, feel free to subscribe to the blog or contact me on +254725832477 if you have any queries. 

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Choose Your Elephants

 

Choose Your Elephants Wisely, Feed Them Jealously.

Peter Turla says ‘Don’t be stomping on ants when you’ve got elephants to feed’

There is so much that demands our attention every single day. It doesn’t matter how much time you have, there will always be more to do for as long as we live.

In the beginning we look for things to keep us busy. There is a certain pride that comes from being occupied and engaged. Before long however, we come to the realization that busyness shouldn’t be our goal at all. Productivity becomes more important because it is the only thing that makes sense. It doesn’t matter how busy you are, if you are not producing the kind of results you are looking for, you are wasting your life and time. When all you care about is activity, you become like a rocking chair. A lot of motion but zero progress like Alfred A. Montapert puts it.

You need to come to a point where you choose where you will focus your attention because it would yield the greatest return on your time and other resources. Nobody wants to spend their resources where they are going to waste or yielding less than ideal outcomes. You have a choice to spend your time on ants or elephants.

When there are so many things screaming for your attention, you need to pose and ask yourself what the most important ones are. I like what Stephen R Covey recommends in his famous book ‘Seven habits of highly effective people.’ He insists on the significance of knowing who you are and what your values are as a person. The reason why we fail to stay focused on our elephants is because we do not know what they are. The one takeaway you should have from this article is that you need to decide what is important to you. Forget about what your peers are doing right now. Forget about the fad of the moment. Don’t get side tracked by the excitement of the crowd. Don’t be moved by whatever challenges you are facing at the moment or what needs your attention right now. Concern yourself more with what is most important when all is said and done. Think about what you would never give up no matter where you find yourself. There are certain things that have refused to go away. You can’t seem to shake them off your mind. Think about what you want to do in your times of peace. What makes you fulfilled beyond anything else? What would you still wake up to do when you do not need to work for money? Therein lies some hint of what your values are.

Once you are clear on your core values, it is time to look at your activity so that you begin to align it to your values. This is what it means to feed your elephants. Elephants are those activities that have the greatest impact on you living out your deepest values. Let’s say for example you value the dignity of every child and as such you want to see all children wherever they are living well. For you as you pursue money, the end is not money per se. You see it as a tool that enables you to live out your deeper value of dignity for all children. You will want to make money so that you can contribute to the taking care of the lives of children as much as you can. Any activity that impacts negatively on your ability to generate money for this cause, will not find room in your schedule. In the same breath any activity that propels you further forward in your quest to reach your goal will find room recurrently in your schedule.

The question then becomes, what elephants are on your schedule right now? If you can reflect back over the last month or so, what do you see taking up most of your time and resources? You have to do an honest assessment so that you are clear on where your priorities lie. Those represent your elephants.

The truth is that sometimes you won’t like what you see. Many times, there is dissonance between what we say we value and what we value in action. Your greatest task then is to identify this dissonance and take corrective action. You have to become deliberate in choosing items that are a reflection of your values to fill up your calendar. Everything else can be done when you have that 25^th hour in your day or that eighth day in your week. The same must follow when it comes to your other resources. You can only spend them in the areas that align with you values.

It comes as a shock to some of your associates and close friends when you choose to adjust like this. All of a sudden, they realize that you are not as available for some activities as you used to be. The good ones will have no problem with this. Friends who have a problem with you taking steps to make your life better are no friends at all. You should not be troubled about such after letting them know the reasoning behind your shift.

As I finish this, suffice it to say that your elephants are your own and you should be proud of them. Give them the best and choicest of your resources. Feed them regularly and do not spare anything from them. As for everything else, let it fit into schedule as it unfolds. There is an analogy that would represent the best way to wrap this up. You have to look at your tasks as rocks, stones, pebbles and gravel of different sizes that you need to fit into a container. You have to start with the biggest rocks-Those are your elephants. The little ones and the gravel are all the other things you can do. They should be allowed to slip in and fit within the container but only after the big rocks are in. Choose your elephants wisely and feed them jealously.

Article by: Samuel Mwinamo Asena

Author: Blessed to be a Blessing. Check out intro here:

https://samuelmwinamo.ck.page/91a9bdeddf

Founder: Optimize Institute:

https://www.facebook.com/Optimize-Institute-103167017916357/

Photo Credit: UN.ORG 

 

The Pit Stop

 

It’s ok to make a Pit Stop.

Sometimes in life you just can’t go on. You run out of breath and you need to catch some breath. Just like machines we too need our downtime for maintenance. The best run machines have regular intervals for shutdown and maintenance. It is wrong to wait for life to stop you by force. You are better off taking a break on your own terms because then you might never need to take forced stops.

From the bible we see God working consecutively for six days then he rests on the Sabbath. God did this not because he was tired. He did it as an example to us to know that we must set aside time to unwind, refresh and recharge.

During a pit stop in motor sports, a lot happens. It is a time for refueling, change of tyres, repairs, mechanical adjustments and even a change of driver as a penalty. It looks insane to stop in the midst of a race because there is time spent in which you would have been racing as a driver. However when you think about the activities in a pit stop, you realize that they are essential if you will finish the race and have a shot at winning. What is the point of racing if you will run out of fuel? How far can you go with worn out tyres? What is the cost of not making the necessary mechanical adjustments to the car before you proceed? What looks like a waste of time, ends up being one of the most important things you can do to ensure you win the race or at worst finish it. Many of us need to get comfortable taking time in the pit stop during the race of life. Without it, you’re likely to lose for a number of reasons. It could be because you run out of fuel, you suffer a tyre burst or race with deflated tyres, your mechanical problems would slow you down and so much more.

Stephen R Covey has an interesting way of looking at it. He says that some people are too busy driving to stop for fuel. As ridiculous as it sounds, we find ourselves operating like this many times. We think that it is too much to ask if we take time off to recharge.

Question? Is it time for you to take a pit stop? When did you last take a scheduled pit stop? Some people take pit stops at the end of every day. Some do it weekly and some need a longer duration. If you can do it daily, great go ahead and schedule time to do it so that you keep your engine in tip-top shape. With the little regular checks, you will find you do not need so much time and effort when you are doing the longer stops where you need to go in-depth.

It is also important that you are clear on what your checklist is during your pit stop. There is no point topping when you don’t know what you intend to check or examine, The clearer your checklist the higher the chances that you will do what is needed to make things work well going forward. It needs to capture all the little things that could go wrong during the race. A lose bolt somewhere, a little  oil to lubricate the moving parts look like small and insignificant thing s but in essence they determine how well your machine will handle the race. What is on your checklist for the pit stops of your life? Feel free to share in the comments below.

Have you had an opportunity to attend any of my Unleash Hour sessions? If not let me know in the comments so I can send you an invite for the next one this Monday. 

You can also check out my book Blessed to be a Blessing using the link below

amazon.com/author/samuelmwinamo 

Photo credits:Analytics Magazine. 

Don't Quit

 

You’ve come too far

I just can’t give up now, I’ve come too far from where I started from, nobody told me, the road would be easy, but I don’t believe you brought me this far to leave me-Mary Mary

Sometimes all you need to keep going is realize that you are not where you started. Quitting now simply means you are throwing all your good work down the drain. Giving up now means all your investment was in vain. You might not be where you want to be, but you definitely are not where you used to be. Appreciate that and carry on.

Think about what it was like when you started out. Even if there is nothing in the physical to show progress, if you look carefully, you will realize that you have grown in character, in wisdom and as a person courtesy of being in that grind. No effort is truly wasted until you decide it is so.

Learn to think of it in terms of what gains you have made instead of what you have lost. It may be true that you have lost some things along the way but your focus has to be on what you are moving towards and not the other stuff that deflates you. 

You either live in the gap or the gain according to Benjamin Hardy. In old parlance you either see the glass as half full or half empty. At the end of the day, you see what you are primed to see by your predisposition. The truth is that if you look keenly, you will realize that you’ve covered enough distance to keep going.

What you need is to tell yourself the truth about your situation. The truth is that you have moved quite the distance. Most people quit on the verge of a breakthrough. The problem is that sometimes we can’t tell which blow will effect the change we are aiming for. Because of this you have to keep on hitting, jabbing and swinging. If you can only push a little bit more, maybe you will find yourself on the other side of your dream.

Remember to subscribe on the right to be a regular reader of more awesome content every week.

You are also invited to check out my Book Blessed to be a Blessing here

https://samuelmwinamo.ck.page/91a9bdeddf

 Photo Credits: Quotespedia.org 

What are you reaching for?

 

Remember what you are moving towards

Just like there are certain things you are running away from, there also are certain other things you going towards. From your visualization, there is a life you want to live, a result you want to get. Let the vision of that result keep you focused because there is only one way to reach it which is to keep going. The future beckons you. Can you hear its voice?

Continuing with The story of the Jews, they only needed to remember God’s promise to them of bringing them into a land of plenty, a land flowing with milk and honey. Those who entered this promise like Caleb and Joshua held on to it in the midst of much confusion and discouragement. It wasn’t easy to remain focused for forty years of trudging through the wilderness. An overwhelming majority of the people died in the wilderness because they couldn’t handle the rigors of the trek.

You have a choice to make when you are stuck in the wilderness. You can choose to murmur and die or you can choose to forge ahead and reach the Promised Land. Joshua and Caleb chose to proceed irrespective of the challenges they needed to overcome to inherit the land. You have to make similar tough choices if you will enter into the promise and enjoy the good of the land. There are no two ways about it.

The one thing that will be helpful is for you to remember what awaits you on the other end. What were you going after when you started out? What change did you set out to effect when you embarked on this trip? What spoils were you chasing after when you chose to go the way you are going?

Kirk Franklyn says that when you are going through hell, the worst thing you can do is stop midway. Your victory comes from going right through. You must remember that the wilderness is not your final destination. Beware of becoming too comfortable in the wilderness. You will never inherit your rightful place if you can’t attach loosely to the wilderness.

What is your end game? For as long as you are not there yet, you have to keep going. Your present challenges should only drive up your desire to reach the land where your troubles will be behind you. You need a constant reminder of the joy set before you as you endure difficulty. One of the things you want to do is have your vision ever before you. It has to be in all the places where you frequent. Wherever you turn, you must see it. It should be the background on your phone, laptop. It should be everywhere in your office, bedroom, closet. The more you see what you are working towards, the more you remain driven to reach it. If you only come into contact with it occasionally, then you risk getting lost in the details of the wilderness. Visualization needs to be a daily activity. I know it can sound overwhelming but we have to make a habit of the things we need to function optimally in life. Visualization is one thing that must become part of our daily routine. Beyond visualization, we need to write down what we are working on so that our daily activities are married to what we are chasing.

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Also don't forget to check out my book Blessed to be a Blessing here 

https://samuelmwinamo.ck.page/91a9bdeddf

 

What's chasing You?

 

Remember what you are moving away from

Many times we are discontented with where we are in life and that forms the basis for whatever next steps we choose to take. When it is dark and cold, lonely and discouraging, it does you a world of good to remember what it is you are moving away from. Surely you must have been so worked up with being in the state you were in for you to begin the journey to your new life. In those moments when you don’t feel like going on, remember there is a world you need to leave behind you. Do yourself the favor and keep putting one foot in front of the other. As you do that every day, you are moving away from that unpleasant past.

The story is told of how the Jews fared on their journey from Egypt and it has significant lessons for us on why it is important to remember what you are moving away from. Only dogs return to their own vomit. Don’t be like a pig that gets washed and the next minute it wallows in the mud and dirt that was just washed off.

The Jews were so quick to forget the four hundred plus years of slavery they had endured in Egypt. They forgot the Manual labor they had been forced to engage in as strangers in a foreign land. It got lost on them how they had cried out to God for deliverance for years on end. They became irrational in the face of new challenges in the wilderness. For some reason they started thinking they had been better off in Egypt. They entertained the idea of going back to Egypt because of their current challenges. They became blinded to their torment under their masters and could only remember the pots of flesh, cucumbers and many other goodies they had left behind. They even complained about there being no graves for them to be buried in the wilderness. Their minds were so clouded courtesy of their current circumstances that they wouldn’t think clearly. How could they forget all the miracles they had encountered in the course of their supernatural deliverance from Egypt? How could they forget the ten plagues visited upon the Egyptians for their release? How could they forget the parting of the Red Sea and how God destroyed the Egyptian army that was pursuing them? As ridiculous as it sounds, they did.

Here is the deal. We are not so different from them and in many ways we find ourselves in similar circumstances. If we are not careful, we will find ourselves reasoning like the Jews. There is an attachment we develop to the things we are so used to that we require constant reminders that we must leave the past in the past. We must be careful not to amplify our current challenges on the way to our goals above what we moved/are moving from. Though the road might be bumpy and uncomfortable, we must never lose sight of the fact that we are moving away from a past that is better off left behind us. We need to beware of The Stockholm Syndrome. This is the tendency to become so attached to our captors as a way of coping with our captivity that we get to a point where we think that we cannot function away from them.

In your mind, you need a clear picture of what you are trying to get away from. You must see the torment for what it is. You must see the oppression of the past for what it is. Remember the pain you had to live with. Break free from what you are familiar with. Beyond living Egypt, you must come to a point where Egypt leaves you. They say you can take a man from the village but you cannot take the village out of the man. This has to be intentional. You must make a conscious choice to break with the past you are moving away from. Without this, there will be no progress towards your goal.

Are you trying to break a bad habit? Remember what it cost you in the past, it will spur you on to work harder. Are you working on selling more this year than last year? Remember what you couldn’t do because of a limited income last year. Are you struggling to study for an exam? Remember what happened when you failed to study for another one in the past. Find motivation from what you are trying to avoid. Find it from what you are trying to move away from. Do not allow the darkness of this present moment blind you from the fact that you are in the right track.

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