Do you know what mortality means? Do you realize at all that you have limited time to live? These questions came to me from my father-now of blessed memory- during my idle years. Now, twenty years after, I look back and thank God that my father had asked me those questions at that time. Reason? They have influenced my decision to change my ways and become who I am today.
Before those thought-provoking, life-changing questions came, life to me was just life. What it really meant, I didn't care. I lived everyday without a purpose. No direction. I couldn't have cared anyway because I had my family to take care of all my needs. Life was meant to be enjoyed. And that I was just going to do and do to the fullest. So, hearing people talk about setting goals and achieving them made me nothing but sick.
Mortality wasn't all totally a strange word to me. But the thought of it was dreadful. "Man ought to just break down in despair at the realization that he would have to die someday". But shouldn't the fact of mortality rather motivate him to achieve his goals? Yes, it should. The fact that a man has limited time to live doesn't mean he should stop living while still alive. Or why did he come into the world in the first place?
We are all in the world for different assignments. These assignments are our purposes and they form the essence of our existence. We are in the world to live our purposes. And no purposes can be achieved without goals because goals are the road maps that guide us as we take life on. The fact of mortality - man's ability to die- should therefore spur him into setting goals and charge after them in a dogged manner, till they are achieved.
No man exists without having dreams. We all have different things we aspire to attain, so that our lives will not just be in vain. My father's questions brought me back to my senses, making me sit down and ask myself what exactly I wanted to do with my life. What do I want to achieve in the limited time that I have to live? A lot, to my surprise! I discovered , all of a sudden that, for years, lurking somewhere deep in my heart has been a dream to excel in life. But if this dream was to come true, I knew I had a lot of grounds to cover, for all those wasted years. So, setting my goals and pursuing them with vigor not only became important but also very urgent. I had to start doing immediately many things that I had left undone over the years. This was a decision I took twenty years ago. And now that I have completed my University education, gained some years of working experience, got married and so on, I am considering quitting my job to start my own dream business.
Achieving one's goals starts with a decision - a decision to a meaning of one's life. This requires a clarification of one's dreams. And once such dreams are determined, goals should be set and followed to the letter, regardless of whatever distractions. Mortality and the fact that one has limited time to live should always be seen as a source of motivation to achieve one's set goals.
BY Olayinka Adebayo, CEO Successscript Ltd (www.successscript.blogspot.com)
Friday, April 16, 2010
Saturday, April 10, 2010
HOW TO AVOID BEING RETRENCHED
Retaining a job is gradually becoming a big deal, especially in this era of stiff competition, occasioned by the high rate of unemployment.Many able-bodied men and women are unemployed, while those that are count themselves lucky to be. This situation makes job retention a great concern to the few lucky paid employees.
Business owners, on their own part, will not compromise standards, when it comes to their staff. They need only well-qualified, well-trained, competent, and hardworking staff. This, in turn, puts much pressure on them to lay off any staff that performs below standard, as there are thousands in waiting for the post thus left vacant.
Now what must a paid employee do to retain his job? He must be ready to update himself all the time, most especially, academically. As stated above, there is stiff competition these days in the labor market and one of the things one can do to maintain one's relevance is updating one's self. For instance, the Bachelor's degree you had some years ago, which fetched you your job, may not be too relevant now. Your boss may prefer somebody with a Master's degree now to you. It's advisable to find time to run a part-time Master's degree program, even though you are not being threatened yet with retrenchment. You have to be proactive and not reactive.
Your schedule of duties at your establishment may not be that tasking due to its size. But that doesn't mean that you should rest on your oars saying, "I know my job, I do it well, and my boss ain't complaining". You may need to get some experience from people elsewhere. For instance, as an accountant used to only profit and loss balancing in your establishment, you need to to tap from the experiences of professional colleagues in other bigger establishments, who do more technical and more brain-tasking stuffs. Being proactive is the word. Don't wait till when someone comes to take your place because you couldn't fit in when your company got bigger.
Now, adequate attention should be given to your personal qualities or traits. Over the years you have been working, you must have discovered your strengths and your weaknesses. If your weaknesses overshadow your strengths, you may lose your job! What are your weaknesses? Perhaps they are forgetfulness, nonchalance, lateness to work and to meetings, moodiness at work, and so on. Get rid of them. Simple. Your boss will prefer an employee who possess exact opposite of these qualities. That you have even stayed this long on the job is because he hasn't seen a replacement for you. Once he does, you are gone!
You should show your self-confidence and your self-esteem. Let it be evident that you are an honorable man - a man who is capable, competent, and honest. Let this show in your relationship with management, colleagues, and clients. Appear and carry yourself with dignity and not with arrogance. Just stand out as excellent.
The simple secret to avoiding being retrenched in this era of job losses and high unemployment is to be the kind of dependable hand your employer wants to always do his job. Endeavor to meet his expectations and your job will be as secured as the breaking of the day or, at least, till when you decide to quit and move on.
Business owners, on their own part, will not compromise standards, when it comes to their staff. They need only well-qualified, well-trained, competent, and hardworking staff. This, in turn, puts much pressure on them to lay off any staff that performs below standard, as there are thousands in waiting for the post thus left vacant.
Now what must a paid employee do to retain his job? He must be ready to update himself all the time, most especially, academically. As stated above, there is stiff competition these days in the labor market and one of the things one can do to maintain one's relevance is updating one's self. For instance, the Bachelor's degree you had some years ago, which fetched you your job, may not be too relevant now. Your boss may prefer somebody with a Master's degree now to you. It's advisable to find time to run a part-time Master's degree program, even though you are not being threatened yet with retrenchment. You have to be proactive and not reactive.
Your schedule of duties at your establishment may not be that tasking due to its size. But that doesn't mean that you should rest on your oars saying, "I know my job, I do it well, and my boss ain't complaining". You may need to get some experience from people elsewhere. For instance, as an accountant used to only profit and loss balancing in your establishment, you need to to tap from the experiences of professional colleagues in other bigger establishments, who do more technical and more brain-tasking stuffs. Being proactive is the word. Don't wait till when someone comes to take your place because you couldn't fit in when your company got bigger.
Now, adequate attention should be given to your personal qualities or traits. Over the years you have been working, you must have discovered your strengths and your weaknesses. If your weaknesses overshadow your strengths, you may lose your job! What are your weaknesses? Perhaps they are forgetfulness, nonchalance, lateness to work and to meetings, moodiness at work, and so on. Get rid of them. Simple. Your boss will prefer an employee who possess exact opposite of these qualities. That you have even stayed this long on the job is because he hasn't seen a replacement for you. Once he does, you are gone!
You should show your self-confidence and your self-esteem. Let it be evident that you are an honorable man - a man who is capable, competent, and honest. Let this show in your relationship with management, colleagues, and clients. Appear and carry yourself with dignity and not with arrogance. Just stand out as excellent.
The simple secret to avoiding being retrenched in this era of job losses and high unemployment is to be the kind of dependable hand your employer wants to always do his job. Endeavor to meet his expectations and your job will be as secured as the breaking of the day or, at least, till when you decide to quit and move on.
Friday, April 9, 2010
HOW TO AVOID SUCCESS INHIBITORS
Life is a journey towards actualizing a goal. The situations we find ourselves in are just stages in the journey. For every journey, there's a set departure time and an arrival time. You, taking the journey, set your schedule with high hopes and expect that things will just go accordingly. But as soon as the journey starts you begin to experience unanticipated events, some of which threaten to make you want to turn back. I call these "SUCCESS INHIBITORS".
The various types of Success Inhibitors being experienced by different people can be traced to a number of sources. People around you could be your primary source, when they let you down, cheat you, betray you, and fall short of your expectations. You can imagine what betrayal of trust from someone you had relied on so much (family or friend) could do to your morale.
Many people have turned back on their journey towards business success as a result of these success inhibitors. The slow pace of business growth, to some people, is enough reason for them to contemplate quitting the business. Perhaps it is difficult to get clients to patronize your products. You may even have them pricing lower, thereby taking you longer to exhaust your stock.
Poor finances is also a very serious success inhibitor. You have a lot of lofty ideas for business but no money to execute them. Yet you hear people say all sorts of things like making money by just thinking positively and visualizing yourself as wealthy! But how true is that? The reality is that making money is both easy and hard, depending on the individual. But for sure, making money is not as easy as losing it.
The most dangerous of these sources is YOU! Your refusal to take a step when and where necessary could be your greatest success inhibitor! You have talents in you that are only waiting to be tapped. There are skills you have to learn and master. There are some knowledge you need to acquire to succeed in that particular field of endeavor. But when you do nothing about all these, you become your very own enemy.
Now, having known the possible sources of your success inhibitors, you need to be up and doing to surmount them. If you can't climb a mountain, at least, you can carve your way round it and move on. Never allow lack of finances to kill your dream and make you refuse to start the business at all. Give no room for discouragement from people who turn you down when you need them the most. Work on yourself and do all that's required of you to succeed. You can blame the whole world for you falling down, but you have only yourself to blame for refusing to get back up.
The various types of Success Inhibitors being experienced by different people can be traced to a number of sources. People around you could be your primary source, when they let you down, cheat you, betray you, and fall short of your expectations. You can imagine what betrayal of trust from someone you had relied on so much (family or friend) could do to your morale.
Many people have turned back on their journey towards business success as a result of these success inhibitors. The slow pace of business growth, to some people, is enough reason for them to contemplate quitting the business. Perhaps it is difficult to get clients to patronize your products. You may even have them pricing lower, thereby taking you longer to exhaust your stock.
Poor finances is also a very serious success inhibitor. You have a lot of lofty ideas for business but no money to execute them. Yet you hear people say all sorts of things like making money by just thinking positively and visualizing yourself as wealthy! But how true is that? The reality is that making money is both easy and hard, depending on the individual. But for sure, making money is not as easy as losing it.
The most dangerous of these sources is YOU! Your refusal to take a step when and where necessary could be your greatest success inhibitor! You have talents in you that are only waiting to be tapped. There are skills you have to learn and master. There are some knowledge you need to acquire to succeed in that particular field of endeavor. But when you do nothing about all these, you become your very own enemy.
Now, having known the possible sources of your success inhibitors, you need to be up and doing to surmount them. If you can't climb a mountain, at least, you can carve your way round it and move on. Never allow lack of finances to kill your dream and make you refuse to start the business at all. Give no room for discouragement from people who turn you down when you need them the most. Work on yourself and do all that's required of you to succeed. You can blame the whole world for you falling down, but you have only yourself to blame for refusing to get back up.
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