Life's Curveballs

 

You should know this by now, but it is important to remind you that nothing seldom goes according to plan. This brings me to the issue of curve balls. In Baseball, a curve ball is a delivery in which the pitcher causes the ball to deviate from a straight path by imparting spin. It is meant to give the opposing team a hard time tracking the ball. It can also be defined in general terms as something which is unexpected, surprising or disruptive. When somebody throws you a curveball, they have basically put you in a tight spot, a position which is a disadvantage of sorts for you.

The world we live in is full of curve balls whether in our personal lives, business, work, ministry, you name it. We are constantly battling one or another unexpected turn of events. Is there anything we can do to prepare ourselves for these kinds of situations? How do you as a business survive the curveball thrown for example by the disruption of Artificial Intelligence? How do you navigate an ailment that shows up unexpectedly as most of them do?

As part of your planning, you need to do a SWOT and a PEST analysis. Most of the curveballs show up as a result of the weaknesses and threats that we fail to anticipate. It is important to do an accurate analysis of your weaknesses and threats so that you give yourself a better chance at fighting and winning against this challenges. Never fail to do due diligence in this regard. You are better off with a strategy of some kind of dealing with your issues as opposed to none.

Curveballs are just that. They come in unexpectedly. There is no plan that is foolproof against all manner of challenges. Planning is just meant to give you a framework from which to wage war against your challenges. In reality you deal with each situation as it comes but with a framework you are somehow in charge of the situation. Mike Tyson says you have a plan until you take the first punch in the face.

Your planning is meant to help you identify the threats that you are likely to face on the battle field. This comes from assessing the terrain on which the battle is to be fought out. This is why that PEST Analysis mentioned above comes into play. Until you know the environment you are operating in, you can’t tell what challenges you are likely to face. Elements of this analysis are bound to change with time and they must be constantly reviewed and a proactive plan helps you stay ahead of the curve.

Your weaknesses must be addressed way before they become a problem. Drawing from the wisdom of the Navy Seals, when you are under pressure, you don’t rise to the occasion, you sink to the level of your training. Training is one of the most effective ways to deal with challenging situations. Training is a proactive or should be a proactive process done well in advance. You do not want to be forced into improvisation on the battle field. Improvisation shouldn’t be your first reaction under pressure. It needs to come after you have done what your training prepared you for and it hasn’t worked out. Training must address all the weaknesses you have which can jeorpadize your success on the mission. The Book of proverbs in the Bible states that you need good counsel when going out to war-Proverbs 20:18, 15:22

Have a strategy in place for dealing with foreseeable challenges. Decide in advance how you will respond in case things begin to go south in one area or another. As for unforeseeable challenges, a framework for response is the best thing you can have on your side. A framework guides your response. Without a framework, you will be forced to react and chances are you will make avoidable mistakes. Most of us wait for things to happen before we look for an angle of attack. The best militaries respond to situations with precision because they have replayed them in training several times over. The truth is that you cannot tell what is coming next all the time but you can position yourself to respond proactively. That is what anticipating curveballs is all about. Don’t make the mistake of assuming that you will just maneuver out of your predicament miraculously. God works both miraculously and meticulously.

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Party after Party

 

Celebrate your ‘small wins.’

Robin Sharma-Five small wins a day equals 1850 wins in 12 months. Consistency breeds mastery.

Achievement is nothing but a series of small wins. There is nothing as sweet as knowing that you have made some progress every day. It is important to have many small wins and celebrate them in between the milestone wins. Small wins show you that you have what it takes to get this done and dusted. They go a long way in building the requisite momentum for bigger stuff that’s on the horizon. Nobody wants to stop when they are winning. The drive to go on and on and on to the next one is so huge when you are winning. One way to do this is to identify small wins in your life every day and celebrate them. This requires reflection and some journaling. Journals are very powerful tools for tracking your progress. When it is recorded, it is possible to look back and see how much distance you have covered. At the end of every day it would help you to look back at what you have accomplished that day and be grateful for it.

When you think only in terms of milestone wins, you might have fewer moments to celebrate and as a result get discouraged along the way. With a series of small wins celebrated daily or almost daily, you wake up the following day looking forward to what is going to happen. You do not expect a day to go by without a win of some sort. The more you celebrate, the more your eyes are opened up to more ground to cover on your way forward. According to James Clear in his wonderful book Atomic Habits, whatever gets rewarded gets repeated. If you want to build on your wins, the best course of action is to celebrate them. If you are working with a team and you experience some sort of win, it is expedient that you take time to celebrate your achievements. This will build a winning culture within your team. The more you celebrate the more wins you are guaranteed to receive. If you shy away from celebrating, people get to a point where they no longer care about trying to win. When exceptional performance goes unrecognized, the drive to excel dies with it.

Celebrations do not have to be an elaborate affair. Sometimes a high five, or a part on the back is celebration enough. At other times, you can work by setting a goal for yourself and the reward you will give yourself if you achieve that goal by the end of the day. This has a way of keeping the momentum building day after day. Your rewards should be commensurate with your achievement and it should be something you treasure enough to want to have by the end of the day. Seeing as many people will not celebrate you, you better get into the habit of celebrating yourself more often than you do currently. The more you celebrate yourself, the easier it becomes to celebrate others in your team. Don’t be mean and unappreciative of your efforts or the efforts of others. Make a habit of finding out how different members on your team like to celebrate. Give everyone what works well for them.

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Go Hard or Go Home

 

Apply Yourself

In Kiswahili we call it ‘Kujituma.’ Please take note of the fact that nothing happens by chance. This ancient principle still holds true. Every effect has a cause. It is very important especially at the beginning of whatever endeavor it is you are on to-to go hard. For as long as you are clear on what it is you need to do now. It is essential to give it your best shot.

Many of us make half-hearted attempts and as a result end up with mediocre results in life. Self-application is at the center of a fulfilling life. Application means devoting yourself to the task at hand and withholding nothing back. It is about applying 10X mentality to all your tasks and endeavors as Grant Cardone puts it.

It means going out of your way as often as is needed to get things done and that well. Application does not choose the path of least resistance. If the challenging path is the only one that will lead to the desired result, then a person with this trait will get on it and push through the resistance until he gets that particular result.

Application comes naturally to go-getters but it takes no special gift to apply yourself. You might be the most reserved person but once you commit to push yourself, you will do what needs to be done to reach where you purposed to.  

Application is about giving it the best push you can and doing so consistently. There is no other way to reach your goals except to apply yourself with consistency. Many have lost their breakthroughs at the last minute because they couldn’t muster the energy to push through the last bit of resistance. The Navy seals say you need to be all in, all the time.

Application is for those who want to do things the right way. There are two ways to do something: the right way and again. It is about not considering to quit. Quitting should never be on the agenda for you when it comes to your mission. Whatever improvisation you need to get to the other side you will bring on board for purposes of reaching the goal. A lot of us quit far too early. We quit while we still have boatloads of energy within. The challenge we have is to let it all out and be who we are meant to be.

To apply yourself you need to think like David Goggins who says ‘I don’t stop when I am tired, I stop when I am done.’ In essence it means you don’t drawback from your goal simply because your body is giving way. You stay on the task until it is accomplished. At this point, you are not looking for the cop out of ‘I tried’ but going all the way until the result is achieved. He goes further to say ‘when you think you are done, you are into 40% of what your body is capable of doing.’

The next best thing once you know what you want to do and how to go about it is to get started and apply yourself accordingly. If at the end of every day you can sincerely say I gave it my all, I gave it my best, then you are applying yourself. If you however feel like you are living beneath your potential, then it is time to apply yourself. Look back over the last week and think about how many days you have applied yourself using this definition. Johann Wolfgang Van Goethe said knowing is not enough, you must apply, willing is not enough, you must do. Doing will separate you from the masses. Many people want it but few are willing to do what it takes to succeed. Choose to be among the few who make it.

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Leap! The time is now.

 

Leap! The Time is Now. 

What is the greatest tragedy ever? For me it is never mastering the courage to get started on your dream, project, goal or whatever it is you want to achieve. One of the greatest hindrances to getting started is the fear of failure. This alone could be responsible for all those dreams and goals that have never taken off.

There is no such thing as perfect conditions or perfect weather for taking off. I am not saying you throw all caution to the wind and jump in with both feet but I am disturbed by all those who are too afraid to venture simply because there is a 30% chance of failure. When you flip that, you realize that there is 70% chance you will succeed. What better odds do you want? They say ships are not built for the harbor but for the high seas. For sure they won’t get battered by the waves at the harbor but for as long as they stay there, they are not living to their full potential. What is this you need to get started on that you are dragging your feet about?

The O.G’s of this game say that if looking back at your initial launch products, actions, results or whatever it is you do shows a perfect picture, then you launched way too late. No amount of planning and strategizing will ever replace action. Never allow yourself to get stuck analyzing theoretical stuff. You will do yourself a greater favor analyzing practical stuff, innovating and adjusting as you go on. 

Don't become a victim of analysis paralysis. It's never that serious. Look at how you beat yourself over missed opportunities and decide that you will not miss this one. Right now, there are people who are waiting for this pandemic to subside before they make their moves. Others have learnt to dance in the rain and they keep going. which camp do you belong to? The opportunities tied up in this difficult time are immense. We shall never be in a position like this again. While others are drawing back, maybe it is time for you to advance with courage. The Tibetans say, it is better to live one day as a tiger than a thousand years as a sheep. 

Sometimes the enemy of good enough is perfect. Perfection lives in Hollywood. In real life, few things play out perfectly. For as long as you have done your due diligence,leave the rest to the forces you cant control. There is no such thing as absolute control-at least not for men. I think with COVID 19 here we can agree on that. control the things you can control. What is beyond you, let others worry about. 

Like the champion that you are, now is the time to take that leap. They say if you fail its a lesson, if you succeed you are an example that it can be done again. 

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Break it down

Grand plans can seem intimidating and way out of reach. Their sheer size can make us quit before we even get started. However the sages made us understand many moons ago that a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. The best thing you can do for yourself is to breakdown your plan into daily, weekly, monthly blocks or whatever other duration makes the most sense to you. Once you have done this, you are ready to go. Surely it doesn’t matter how grand your plan is, there is an element of it you can start working on today. Focus on that element and build it up from there. When it is broken down it gives you the requisite momentum to keep going. And you don’t know what a little momentum can get you doing. The beauty of small steps is that they give you small victories to celebrate along the way. Seek to find happiness in the journey and not just the destination. The joy is in the journey and all its intrigues.

The question you must ask at this stage is what about my grand plan is in my power to do today? What mini goals can I tackle this week that would contribute to the ultimate goal? Daily victories are what you should go for as long as they tally with your overall goals and values.

It is important to decide everyday how you are going to show up for your dreams. Choose to take time to map out your short term goals and how you going to go about them. Grant Cardone says if your goals are important, you write them down every day not just once a year then you forget. When they are ever before you, they keep you on your toes and you realize that time is passing by and I need to do the needful so that I am not left behind.

As humans, we like our change coming in small doses. Evolutions are more palatable than revolutions. Because of this, you need to break down your plan to give yourself a chance at evolutionary progress which is more agreeable for you and a majority of us. Your grand plan is revolutionary and as such it can become intimidating to pursue. You need the breakdown to stay sane and grounded. You need to progress sustainably so that you are not shooting in one hundred directions at the same time with little to no tangible impact.

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Plan/strategize

A dream remains just that until you create a structure around its realization. The plan is that structure that brings about form to your dreams. A plan is the roadmap that will guide you from where you are to where you want to end at. To ensure success someone said you need to pray as though everything depends on God and plan as though everything depends on you. Great things are accomplished when man co-works with God in perfect harmony. There are two dangers inherently found here. On the one hand, we have those who leave everything in the hands of fate (God). They mistakenly believe that the stars will get aligned in their favor. That whatever higher power they believe in will do what needs to be done and lead them to the enjoyment of the fruit. This view is wrong and downplays the contribution of mere mortals to the realization of great feats. On the other hand, there is the view that believes in the indispensability of human effort in the accomplishment of these great feats. Such are those who believe that it is purely human ingenuity that has and can accomplish great feats. They downplay and negate the impact of the invisible higher power. They limit themselves significantly because this means they cannot tap into what is unseen and unlimited. Both views are wrong. The victory is found in the middle ground where we have God and man each playing their own role effectively leading to the realization of great aspirations.

There is no substitute for planning. The greater your dream, the more elaborate your planning needs to be. Planning is a function of management. You must see yourself as the manager over your dreams. Realize that things don’t just happen by chance. Acknowledge that it takes the diligent planning and execution of plans to move from where you are to where you want to be. I love the Swahili proverb ‘Ukiona vyaelea jua vimeundwa’ loosely translated it means, whatever you see has been put in place by someone’s effort. We do not sleep our way into realizing our dreams. We are called upon to stand up and pursue unwaveringly that which we are convicted of and committed to.

Planning is about counting the cost. What is it going to take to realize the dream? You ask yourself whether you have the resources in place to get the job done. At the planning stage you gather all what you need to build your dream house. Here you weigh your options to choose the best way forward. Here you also determine how long it will take you, who you need to tag along, what is the fastest, cost effective and sustainable path to follow in the pursuit of your dream. Planning is about mapping out the details so that you don’t leave more than you should to chance. It doesn’t lock God out. It just ensures that man takes care of his end of the bargain. You don’t want to get to the point of saying what will be, will be. That is the posture of a man who is helpless and who sees himself as a victim with no choice whatsoever what happens to them. You also want to avoid the posture of a know-it-all who doesn’t need anyone else’s input towards their success. You will make things unnecessarily difficult for yourself if you take this stance.

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Ditch fear, Commit.

The power of life and death is in the tongue. Proverbs 18:21. You can quickly kill your dreams by the words you speak. In the same breath you can give life to them with your words. You must learn the art of possibility speaking beyond possibility thinking. When you open your mouth and say it loud as opposed to just thinking, you are letting the whole world know what you want. The world makes way for the man who knows where he is going and he is not afraid of speaking about it. You never know who is listening, he might just be looking for someone like you to help accomplish that goal. Yes there is the very real danger of letting the secret out to the wrong person who will work day and night to bring you down but more often than not, you sail through. When you make your intentions clear, it eliminates doubt in your own mind and in the mind of others concerning what you want. Speak with forthrightness about what you are chasing after. It works both from the inside out and vice versa. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.

The other thing you do when you speak out loudly and you are a man of integrity, you have just publicly bound yourself to the task at hand. You put yourself in a position where you will not want to backtrack on your commitments to that course of action. When I want to do something and I don’t see the means, I have developed the habit of loudly proclaiming it. That puts immense pressure on me to go out and pursue it as it also galvanizes external support which is instrumental in getting me across the pond. Speaking about it has the impact like that of a man who has just jumped into a pond full of crocodiles and other reptiles. The only option left is for you to swim across to the other side. This is not easy when you have integrity issues. Without integrity it is easy to backtrack and focus on the easier route of least resistance.

When you downplay your dreams and suppress them, you have a built in excuse for failure. When you move from ‘This is what I am going for’ to ‘Let me try and see what comes out of it’ you are already prepared to lose. Your choice of words is huge when it comes to doing what you say you are committed to. It is reflective of your thinking and convictions. Anytime you find yourself hesitating from boldly declaring what you are pursuing, check your commitment to the same. We blame Joseph for speaking about his dreams but come to think of it, if he kept his mouth shut, where would the jealousy of his brethren which God used providentially to push him towards his destiny come from. His words provoked and activated the fulfillment of God’s dreams for him. If what you carry is divinely inspired, speaking about it (in faith not pride) will not derail you but propel you faster to your end goal.

Go on and speak it because it is yours to claim.

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