Is Achievement Determined By Destiny ?

Do you believe in destiny? Some people do and some others don’t. There is a group of people I know who believe so much in destiny that they go as far as visiting soothsayers to give them an insight into what their future looks like, if they are “destined” to make it in life.

Another group I also know have the belief that if you were born poor, that is your destiny and there is nothing you can do about it and if you were born into a wealthy family, then that is your destiny.

These beliefs are deeply rooted in their culture and religion. I am a Christian by the grace of Almighty God, so am I supposed to believe in destiny? Sacred scripture says in Deuteronomy 13: 1-3 “A prophet or an interpreter of dreams may promise a miracle or a wonder, in order to lead you to worship and serve gods that you have not worshipped before. Even if what he promises comes true, do not pay any attention to him. The Lord your God is using him to test you, to see if you love the Lord with all your heart”.

This admonition was addressed to the Israelites of old and in today’s time equally applies to Christians not to go to soothsayers to check for their “destiny” for such practice would lead one away from worshiping the one true God and into idol worship. For me personally, I hold this statement very dear to my heart.

Now in Mark 11: 22-24, our Lord Jesus clearly states, “Have faith in God, I assure you that whoever tells this hill to get up and throw itself in the sea and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. For this reason I tell you: When you pray and ask for something, believe that you have received it and you will be given whatever you ask for.

So the Christian’s destiny, as it were, lies in his or her ability to have more faith than doubt in any endeavour embarked on. For this reason I don’t believe in destiny in the way the two groups I earlier talked about do. Rather, I know clearly that the words I speak and the thoughts of my heart are areas I should direct my focus.

Interestingly the nature of man is such that anyone can do this whether Christian or not because God has given us inherent qualities that produce the physical results of words we speak and thoughts we carry.

So I tell you, the destiny you have lies in you. God in His infinite mercy and love for man has made it so. Do what our Lord Jesus has advised in His word and achieve whatever you desire in life. There you have another wealth secret!

© copyright Gabriel Ama.

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Averse To Criticism?

Not all criticism is good. Secondly, you cannot be all things to all people; as a human that would make you a divine being. However, the individual who has fame, wealth, recognition or whatever achievement in mind must learn to sieve through the shaft of daily criticism and take the good ones on the journey to success.

The simple reason for this is because you cannot know everything about every situation. I have come to admire my spouse in this area because though she studied a social science subject at higher institution, she sometimes amazes me with her technical reasoning ability.

At times I find myself struggling to resolve an issue at home and she comes and says why not do it like this and this? I then look at myself and wonder why I didn’t think of it along the same line; when we try her advice, I get the result I had in mind and I tell you this has occurred a couple of times during our stay together.

I tell you pride is one major obstacle that could hinder one from listening to criticism especially when going in the wrong direction but when you find yourself doing the same thing and expecting a different result, then what happens? Do you remain there still doing the same thing? That, as someone once said is madness.

At this point I like to make a distinction - please don’t confuse open mindedness with foolishness. Some folks may take the comments in the preceding paragraphs out of context and think they should go about looking for people to criticise what they are doing. If you try this, you may land yourself in the hands of a never-see-good-in-anything-or-person kind of a person who would so criticise you that you could give up altogether on your dreams if you are not strong willed.

 On the other hand, a little stubbornness is good if you truly believe in a cause but like I said earlier, don’t be so stubborn that it turns to foolishness even when it is obvious that your path is leading to no where. You have got to know when to retrace your steps, change your strategy and continue until you get there. It just means you should be open minded to change to get past your obstacle on the road to achievement.

So in essence, what you must develop a good eye for is constructive criticism. Don’t be quick to defend yourself without first listening to what the critic is saying. You must make an in-depth analysis within your mind about what the person is saying and how it fits into your long term goal.

This is where you can distinguish between positive constructive criticism and negative destructive criticism. The person who criticises positively will also allow you the opportunity to speak while discussing with you to advance reasons for your present action and then use that to build on other initiatives you can try. The person’s countenance is calm; from his or words you can see a genuine desire to help you improve to get to your destination.

The negative critic’s countenance on the other hand exudes the very opposite. Please don’t allow their words and thoughts affect you or your dream. You were born to be great if you understand the power that resides within you. God put it there so be grateful to Him always.

Listen only to positive constructive criticism and when you expand your wealth of knowledge and then act on it, success is not far off.

© copyright Gabriel Ama.

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Mental Preparation, A Must!!

How prepared are you for success? It’s easy to say a resounding yes but further probe would show that most people are just not ready for success, especially mentally.

I attended a Catholic Church wedding recently where 4 couples were getting married including a Catholic and a Protestant. The officiating minister at this wedding preached a most beautiful message every intending couple ought to hear to have a successful marriage.

He emphasised the fact that the Catholic and Protestant couple should realise their different religious views and the fact that this will become a source of misunderstanding they should be prepared to deal with. He also emphasised the fact that couples don’t take time to realise what they are getting into and prepare enough for it. This he said unfortunately results most times in the breakdown of the marriages.

Mental preparation for success in whatever endeavour (business, marriage, sports, entertainment, etc) is much more important than physical preparation because it is the one factor that gets you going when challenges show up. It is also the factor that drives you and keeps you remaining focused on your results and not just activities.

If you were given cash of a million United States dollars, what would be your reaction? How about 2 million, or 10 million dollars or 100 million dollars or even a billion dollars, would you faint? The answer to that question is very important and shows how mentally prepared you are for success.

Mental preparation simply means you must never be afraid of figures when it comes to money, no matter the amount. You have to state in your conscious mind exactly how much it is you want to get in life, no matter the amount. You have to be specific, not saying, about so so and so figure but the exact amount and the exact currency (dollars, pounds, euros, etc etc).

A story is told of Jim Carrey the American comic actor who years earlier had written himself a 10 million dollar cheque when he had nothing and years later, he was cashing a cheque of same amount because he mentally prepared that figure in his mind.

It is the same thing with prayer just like our Lord Jesus said in Matthew 6:7 - 8. He said you must not beat about the bush and say long prayers like pagans do but go straight to the point because God knows what you want even before you ask for it. So its very important to be specific on the profession you want or whatever it is you want out of life.

So how do you prepare mentally? A simple way of putting it could be found in what Late American billionaire J. Paul Getty said that you think of the worst that could happen and then do all it takes to ensure it never happens. Remember you have to think of it first mentally to know the steps to take to handle it when it does happen.

This process could again be compared to what married couples pass through as the years roll by. Some couples cannot stand themselves for even one month of marriage while some others manage a year, two years, three, four or five. After five years there is usually a bit of stability though at times it crashes within the next five years.

Do you know what is the one common factor with couples whose marriages succeed? There is mental preparation where they decide that they will remain with each other no matter what happens. This simple decision enables them to overcome the roughest challenges they are likely to encounter with time. The challenges must certainly come because no two people are perfect with different upbringing, background, experience, etc.

That decision comes to mind to keep them in check anytime they reach a critical threshold triggered even by the smallest of issues. So you cannot run away from this process if genuine wealth and success in whatever endeavour is your goal in life. You just have to be mentally prepared.

© copyright Gabriel Ama

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Plan Your Work; Work Your Plan (2)

I had to write this as a rejoinder to last week’s article to emphasise the importance of tracking one’s plan. As a child growing up, it was quite easy recalling things I had to do. This ability stayed with me even while at the University. When I left school and starting working, I noticed that I could no longer recall things I had to do as easy as it was those early days.

I recall even once when my first boss at work told me several things I had to do and I said okay, okay, okay and then he asked, “won’t you write all I’ve said down?” to which I responded that I wouldn’t forget. Then my boss said, “oh, so you have a computer brain?” Honestly then I thought my boss was making a fuss until I noticed like I said that I starting forgetting things to do.

It was my reading of motivational books that made me see what I had to do: write things down. If you are like me and read motivational books you’d see one of things advised to do is write down one’s goals and plans.

Please take that advice very seriously especially where you have a very busy schedule. It would make the difference between keeping focused and losing track of what one is doing. When you write things down, it is easy to see where you are, what you’ve done, what you’re yet to do, what requires modification and even the process of doing them if your plan is very detailed.

Never assume you can clog your pretty head with things to do because with a busy schedule it just won’t work. You will find yourself drifting from one activity to another without really accomplishing things in an ordered fashion as planned, but haphazardly. More importantly, you will forget most things you intend doing unless they are written down.

It would look just like going shopping with a list of things to buy in your head and not written down. How many things can one possibly recall shopping this way? Very few I can assure you. Your head is best left free to do serious thinking about providing solutions to challenges if genuine wealth in life is your goal.

Finally, keep what you’ve written where you can see it most likely pasted on a wall if it’s a major plan so it gives you a picture of your progress as you accomplish each milestone.

There you have another wealth secret.

© copyright Gabriel Ama.

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Plan Your Work; Work Your Plan

My Principal in High School used to tell us then that “to fail to plan is to plan to fail”. He was a University graduate of English Language and must have quoted this statement from one of the many books he must have studied. He used to give us advice through such quotes.

We were young then and most of us never really understood those comments. However, as I grew older, I began to see signs of the truth and wisdom of those comments, especially the failing to plan that meant planning to fail.

Most people do not have a road map for their lives and just sort of follow any direction in which life pushes them. This lifestyle looks just like a road junction that opens into many road arteries and yet only one leads to the correct destination. If there is no map to guide one, such person would have to keep trying each road, come back, take the next one and so on and so forth. You can therefore imagine how time consuming and tedious that would be.

On the other hand, with a map that has the destination, you can immediately tell which road to follow. This is why you see many people jumping from one venture to the other all in a bid to make it in life. They start a venture, fail, give up, move to another one, fail, give up, move to yet another and so on and so forth.

If the truth be told, some few are able to keep moving this way until they hit the right venture. However for most, the result is a continuous struggle without any positive result to show.

Research experience has shown that most projects fail at planning stage. They fail because the planners do not properly think through before drawing the plan and at implementation stage, they get bogged down by so many challenges that the project becomes somewhat like a white elephant.

This therefore should guide you reading this piece that proper planning is required if you are to obtain lasting success in your desired endeavour. You just cannot afford to leave things to chance as the average person would do and get average results. You must think through carefully and come up with something that will work.

Take note though, that no plan is foolproof for the simple fact that you cannot get all details once; and that is why a constant periodic review is required to further consolidate on the initial plan. Planning is better than not planning because it gets more than 70% of the work done.

The other part comes from the implementation where attitude, discipline and focus are the main drivers required to get things done. So, what then should be the components of one’s plan? The very basic components should be:

(1)   an objective or goal

(2)   required resources – tools, people and things required to work the plan

(3)   likely challenges to encounter  and how to tackle or overcome them (very important)

These should be expatiated to obtain as much information as required and it would vary slightly depending on the objective.

This should then guide the implementation and as I said earlier, a constant periodic review would be required to ensure we are on track. This review would show what is working, what needs modification, what additional resources are required and what is not working. This could be done either monthly, quarterly or bi-annually.

 I can assure you this takes a lot of discipline to achieve but it is worthwhile if your objective is true wealth from any endeavour you undertake. On your road to achievement, never forget the maxim, “to fail to plan is to plan to fail”.

© copyright Gabriel Ama.

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