BE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR LIFE

I have come to discover the reason why most people fail in life, either in their career, family, business or academics. Being successful in life takes just being responsible for your actions and its outcomes. This is just one of the simple secrets of succeeding in life that people over look, or don’t bother paying attention to.

Even the ants are responsible for their own survival

A lot of individuals today are entangled in a life of blame. They attribute everything that happens to them to someone else’s fault and thus go ahead to blame someone for the crisis in their life and for their failures. Some blame their parents for their poverty or even marriage crisis and the blame excuses keep heaping up for every single circumstance.

Your level of responsibility simply underscores your level of success in life. This is applicable to whatever you do or whatever venture you undertake in life.

To change the way things work in your life or to overcome the crisis in your life, whatever it may be, you simply need to take responsibility and begin to walk away from that situation.

TAKING RESPONSIBILITY: Taking responsibility simply means being the captain of your own ship. You determine the path your ship takes and not wait or allow any one shove you around or determine your purpose or path in life. Some people today have lived all their lives serving other persons purposes and allow them determine what course they take in life.

To be responsible and to be able to determine how your life turns out, you must take charge of your life. You must begin your life looking inward to know what you want and how you will get it. You MUST not allow external influences to affect or alter the course to your destination. Consider sailors in a vast sea with only a compass to direct their path. No matter how big or how life threatening the storm is, they still maintain their path sailing through the storm, because they know that drifting from that path will be catastrophic. They may never find their way home- they will simply be lost in the sea and probably perish at sea without help in sight.

The same thing is applicable to you, if you do not become responsible for your life and carve a purpose for it. You will be like a ship lost at sea. You will be simply lost in life. Living without purpose and waiting for death to come calling.

You need to take charge of your marriage or relationship and be in charge. Being in charge doesn't mean being domineering or bossy. It means recognizing your role as a partner and accepting where you have made mistakes, take charge, apologize (where you have to) and be more understanding.

WHATS IS YOUR IMPACT? In your career or business, you must decide what your impact is. You cannot succeed if you do not make any impact on your clients or customers. How well do you appreciate and offer your services to them. A great entrepreneur once said “the customer can fire the chief executive down to the last man by deciding to spend his money somewhere else”. It simply means you can be out of business if people decide not to patronize your business. So, to keep your business yielding, you must invest in your clients and be responsible for their happiness.

Your impact on people you meet or deal with, even your friends and family members determine your place in their life and how well they regard you. Every human being is what he is, based on his or her impact in the life of others.

THE 3 RULES OF LIFE: Someone wrote about the three rules in life. It states;

1.    If you do not go after what you want, you will never have it.

2.  If you do not ask, the answer will always be no.

3.  If you do not step forward, you will always remain in the same place.

I think this is apt in defining some irresponsible people. Irresponsible in the sense that they do not are not responsible for their lives. You have to go for what you want, ask questions, and take a step forward in your life to get to your deserved destination. Some people will never ask, and they will never learn or know, and thus remain where they are and sometimes a burden to other.

In the end, whatever is the outcome of your life, no one will be held responsible but you. Your failures and successes in life depend on how much control you have on your life. Thus how responsible are you in making decisions that affects your life positively or negatively.

NaijaEntrepreneur: TIMEIS LIFE- Investing time for a life of fulfillm...

NaijaEntrepreneur: TIMEIS LIFE- Investing time for a life of fulfillm...: TIME IS LIFE- Investing time for a life of fulfillment It’s been said many times in the axiom that time is money. For many business me...

TIME IS LIFE- Investing time for a life of fulfillment

It’s been said many times in the axiom that time is money. For many business men, women and entrepreneurs, this goes well to form the nucleus of the policies and principles that drives their passion and motivation.

For some, money may not be the ultimate goal of their lives. Then what does time entails for them? Knowing the place and import of time in your in one’s life will change everything one have come to know about time management, and set one on a new pedestal and how to value your time and invest it more wisely.

Photo by Swing Media

Well, what if you are to learn that time is not just money but LIFE! Wouldn't you value time just as you value your life, when you come to the understanding that your life is tied to time? And as much as you waste precious time you are wasting your life and the more you invest your time, you are investing richly in your life.

Ever wondered why people seek a second chance to make amends or perhaps do what they should have done but never did? Or why people regret some of the things they did or didn't do and simply wished they could rewind the hands of time to make it possible again?

Unfortunately, time, once it’s gone is never recovered. The reason why most people fail in life is simply because they didn't know how to invest the time they had, and they wasted a lot of their it, doing the wrong things.  The value of time in your life is tied to what you do with every single seconds of time.  What you give your time to, determines what life will give to you. To be a successful entrepreneur, you need to invest in time doing what entrepreneurs do- innovating, solving problems and needs, breaking new frontiers and barriers. To be a loving husband and good father, you must spend time with your wife, your kids, to love and care for them. Successful leaders hardly had enough time. 24 hours is usually not enough for them. But see a loser he, doesn't know what to do with time. He simply waits it out driving himself to the pit of failure, sadness and an unfulfilled life.

Even the good book in Eccl. 3 vs. 1 expounded the importance of time in life

“There is a time for everything,
    and a season for every activity under the heavens:

²     a time to be born and a time to die,
    a time to plant and a time to uproot……”

God did everything in the principle of time even with creation.

BEGINNING A NEW LIFE OF TIME

What are you doing with your time? Are you simply waiting out your time doing the wrong things and driving yourself to failure and sadness? Here are a few words on how you can begin a new life of time.

Begin with the end in mind: There are no fast lanes or quick fixes in life. Whatever you desire to be or to achieve must be propagated and cultivated in time. (Eccl. 3 vs 2 ….…a time to plant and a time to reap). To begin with the end in mind is to create for yourself the future you deserve not desire. (People mostly get what they deserve, not desire) and then plant the seed(s) that will grow into your deserved future. Of course working through every details and goals you must have set for yourself to achieve this deserved future.

A step into time: A Chinese proverbs that has been communized says that the journey of a thousand miles begins with a step. If you have been wasting your life sitting around doing nothing for it, now is the time to step into a new life of taking responsibility for your time and life. Little drops of water they say makes a mighty ocean. Begin little by little. If you want to become successful, see beyond what you see. See opportunities in every problem you encounter or witness. Even your present situation is an opportunity for you to take a new course and change your destiny.

Invest time in thinking out ideas. Look around you and see what problems people face. Think of a solution to the problem and help people with the solutions. Become innovative, be different, there is no harm in it, but be positive.

A life time investment: The tree you see today was planted by someone yesterday. The secret of a successful life is in a life time of investment. An athlete invests time in training. An author invests time in writing. A professor, invested time in studying and researching. Successful entrepreneurs invest time and every penny to their ideas and ventures. What are you investing today? It took Thomas Edison more than a thousand times to discover the light bulb. It takes time to realize every dream. Success is redefined to mean a progressive realization of a worthy ideal. Success is progressive- thus time after time. If you need a million naira to start a business, begin now to save to realize that dream. It doesn't matter how many years it takes you, what matters is that you are working towards your dream and actualizing it. Once, my mentor told me that life is like a marathon race where everyone is a competitor. In this race so many will have excuses for not making it first to the finish line. Some will stop to take a pee, some to excrete, others to rest their legs. He said, to make it you have to continue. If you have to pee and excrete on your body do so. People will laugh at you for peeing and excreting on your clothes, but it doesn't matter. When you have made it first to the finish line, the same people who mocked and laughed at you are same people who will lift you high and celebrate your victory with you.

In sum, remember that the quality of your time will depend on the quality of time you spend. Spend your time being a couch potato the quality of your life will be that of an obese sad person. This as simple as it goes, your time is your life, spend it wisely!

Shalom!

Deserve: merit: to have earned or be worthy of something Desire: request something: to wish for and request something

THINK OF GIVING UP? REASON WHY YOU SHOULD THINK OTHERWISE

And let us not lose heart and grow weary and faint in acting nobly and doing right, for in due time and at the appointed season we shall reap, if we do not loosen and relax our courage and faint.

—Galatians 6:9

Are you on a precipice? Do you think you are losing it? Are you on the verge of giving up totally? You think nothing is working and your prayers are not being answered? Well, hear this; you may just well be close to your break through!

Perhaps, also you have been asking the wrong questions and doing the wrong things or not even doing anything at all; sure, that's why nothing seems to move for you. You need to know where you fall under the later questions and begin to move on the right paradigm. The solution to your predicament is not in giving up. The solution is in hanging on and changing your strategies and listening to the right words your heart

Photo by Swing Consult Media

s speaks to you.

History is rich with people, who today are life changers and multi-millionaires who once in their life time found themselves in the same situation you are in now, but decided to take action rather than let empathy, pity and their circumstances engulf them. As a matter of fact, their hopeless and helpless situation provided them a means (courage) out of their quagmire. Always remember that your destiny, your future, your purpose can only be shaped by you and no one else. First, you have to realize this fact and then quit blaming your parents, your friend, brother or whoever for being the cause or your problems. Look yourself in the mirror and say to yourself, " i am where i am because i choose to be there". Then ask yourself, do you really like where you are at the moment? If the answer is NO! Then move away from the position you are in right now and start moving towards where you deserve (not desire) to be. Only you can move yourself to that place, no one else can.

Well, you may be asking, how can i move myself to where i want to be? How do i even know which road to take to get to where i deserve to be? I will oblige to all these questions in the next part of this newsletter. but mean while, let us talk of you, yes you who is doing the good work and seeing no result. 

It doesn't matter how long you have committed to that good cause, job, idea, business etc and it's not working out and yielding the results you need. What matters is that you are doing something worthwhile. As an entrepreneur, one virtue you need is "PATIENCE". To know that before you begin to reap from any crop, you must first of all plant and the seed must die and decay, then start the process of growing to the finally stage where you can reap a good harvest. Take note of the words, die and decay. Yes, whatever seedling you put in the ground, must first die, decay to now have a shoot. It is the natural phenomena of life. Even the good book says, "unless a grain of seed falls to the ground and dies, it shall not bear fruit" - paraphrasing. Again, if you must gain your life, you must first of all lose it. Just as you can’t go to heaven without first dying.

So, your period of waiting is your period of dying and decaying and the beginning of the process of the maturity of the fruits your want to reap in your business, idea or venture. Be patience and in due time all things will fall it is place.

- Don Emeka Nwokedi

Chief Editorr, NaijaEntrepreneur.com

www.naijaentrepreneur.blogspot.com

How to Actually be Successful in Achieving Your 2014 Goals.

Change is hard. You’ve probably noticed that.

We all want to become better people—stronger and healthier, more creative and more skilled, a better friend or family member. But even if we get really inspired and start doing things better, it’s tough to actually stick to new behaviors. It’s more likely that this time next year you’ll be doing the same thing than performing a new habit with ease. Why is that? And is there anything you can do to make change easier?

Identity-Based Habits

The key to building lasting habits is focusing on creating a new identity first. Your current behaviors are simply a reflection of your current identity. What you do now is a mirror image of the type of person you believe that you are (either consciously or subconsciously).

To change your behavior for good, you need to start believing new things about yourself.

Imagine how we typically set goals. We might start by saying “I want to lose weight” or “I want to get stronger.” If you’re lucky, someone might say, “That’s great, but you should be more specific.”

So then you say, “I want to lose 20 pounds” or “I want to squat 300 pounds.” These goals are centered around our performance or our appearance. Performance and appearance goals are great, but they aren’t the same as habits. If you’re already doing a behavior, then these types of goals can help drive you forward. But if you’re trying to start a new behavior, then I think it would be far better to start with an identity-based goal.

The image I created below shows the difference between identity-based goals and performance and appearance-based goals.

 

The interior of behavior change and building better habits is your identity. Each action you perform is driven by the fundamental belief that it is possible. So if you change your identity (the type of person that you believe that you are), then it’s easier to change your actions.

The reason why it’s so hard to stick to new habits is that we often try to achieve a performance or appearance-based goal without changing our identity. Most of the time we try to achieve results before proving to ourselves that we have the identity of the type of person we want to become. It should be the other way around.

The Recipe for Sustained Success

Changing your beliefs isn’t nearly as hard as you might think. There are two steps: Decide the type of person you want to be and prove it to yourself with small wins.

I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to start with incredibly small steps. The goal is not to achieve results at first; the goal is to become the type of person who can achieve those things. For example, a person who works out consistently is the type of person who can become strong. Develop the identity of someone who works out first, and then move on to performance and appearance later. Start small and trust that the results will come as you develop a new identity.

Here are five examples of how you can make this work in real life.

1. Want to lose weight?
Identity: Become the type of person who moves more every day.

Small win: Buy a pedometer. Walk 50 steps when you get home from work. Tomorrow, walk 100 steps. The day after that, 150 steps. If you do this five days per week and add 50 steps each day, then by the end of the year, you’ll be walking over 10,000 steps per day.

2. Want to become a better writer?
Identity: Become the type of person who writes 1,000 words every day.

Small win: Write one paragraph each day this week.

3. Want to become strong?
Identity: Become the type of person who never misses a workout.

Small win: Do pushups every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

4. Want to be a better friend?
Identity: Become the type of person who always stays in touch.

Small win: Call one friend every Saturday. If you repeat the same people every three months, you’ll stay close with 12 old friends throughout the year.

5. Want to be taken seriously at work?
Identity: Become the type of person who is always on time.

Small win: Schedule meetings with an additional 15–minute gap between them so that you can go from meeting to meeting and always show up early.

What is your identity?
In my experience, when you want to become better at something, proving your identity to yourself is far more important than getting amazing results. This is especially true at first.

If you want to get motivated and inspired, then feel free to watch a YouTube video, listen to your favorite song, and do P90X. But don’t be surprised if you burn out after a week. You can’t rely on being motivated. You have to become the type of person you want to be, and that starts with proving your new identity to yourself.

Most people (myself included) will want to become better this year. Many of us, however, will set performance and appearance-based goals in hopes that they will drive us to do things differently. If you’re looking to make a change, then I say stop worrying about results and start worrying about your identity. Become the type of person who can achieve the things you want to achieve. Build the habit now. The results can come later.