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

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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.

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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.

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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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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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Remember why you started

 

Many times we start with very grand ambitions and for the first few moments, days, weeks or months depending on what timeframe we are working with things can go really well. However as we continue, inevitably curveballs are thrown at us. If we are not careful, they can be the end of us. However if we navigate carefully through them, we come out stronger on the other side and are left wondering how we made it through. One of the tools you can make use of at this time, is the memory of why you started. You need to develop a strong ‘why’ for what you are doing. If your why is weak, you will quit at the first signs of trouble. If it is strong on the other hand, you will keep plugging away until you overcome. The O.G’s have also indicated that when your why is strong enough, the how kind of takes care of itself.

You gotta ask yourself, who will benefit if I hang in there? Who will lose if I quit now? How significant is what I am doing beyond my own needs and preferences. Your why needs to go deeper than mere self -gratification. It must look beyond your own affairs’. You give yourself added impetus when you understand that what you do goes way beyond you to touch many others.

I propose that you should never start on any endeavor before you clarify your ‘why.’ The struggle to keep going becomes a thing of the past when you are clear on your why. A strong why will blast through walls of iron and sweep everything in its wake.

You must become deliberate in reminding yourself why you started. Grant Cardone in his wonderful book The 10X Rule says that if your goals are important enough, you write them down every single day. I believe that this act of writing among many other reasons serves as a reminder of what you are pushing towards and why it must be done.

We see the example of Jesus who endured the cross, despising the shame and went through some of the most humiliating and dehumanizing experiences culminating in death by crucifixion. The scriptures conclude that it was for a reason. It was for the joy that was set before him. When he thought about what the humiliation and shame would accomplish, he was ready to go through it all. The description of what he went through as we see it in Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53 is as gross as it can get. Courtesy of coming face to face with the reality of his imminent death, His human nature kicked in and he prayed that the cup of suffering would pass on from Him. Despite this, He had enough presence of mind to submit himself to the will of God. He remembered that the eternity of many souls was dependent on his death on the cross. Such a why was too strong for Him to quit. Because of this, He was able to brush aside the mockery of those who reviled Him even while he hung on the cross to die for their sin. In essence, he had every reason to quit yet He stayed the course and found victory.

A strong why eliminates excuses and sets you on the path to accomplishment. You get to a point where the cost of your excuses is too great a burden to bear that you choose to push through the resistance. Oftentimes we accomplish great feats not because we wake up every day feeling charged and energized to go out there and get it done. Sometimes we have to fight our own demons, we have to rise above the resistance of our bodies, we have to gather our thoughts and remind ourselves that what needs to be done must get done.

Every day when you wake up, make a habit of reminding yourself why you are up. See to it that your mission remains at the forefront of your mind. When its dark and you can’t see two steps ahead of you, remind yourself that a lot hinges on how you act today.

Your why must be personal. If you rely only on someone else’s why, you are going to run out of steam at some point. Whether you work under a boss or you are under the care of your parents, at some point you need to cultivate your own why for doing what you are asked to do. Without this personal driving force, you won’t last long in the game. Before you know it, you will be at breaking point because you are driven by someone else’s why.

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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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