Have you done your personal evaluation for the previous year? Have you taken time to check if you are growing up? I’m not talking about age. Growing up is about maturity, growing old is about age. Have you grown? How was your productivity in business, skill and relationships?
These questions are not to make you feel bad about your failures. It’s to help you make this year better than last. You may not achieve your target or meet up with expectations in the previous year; you may fail in your plans or breach your commitments; but you’d have to forgive yourself for not making the last year great as you desired. Forgive yourself for failing in the last year. But you don’t have to fail in this year!
Personal evaluation is the analysis of your productivity with respect to your purpose, plans and commitment. Even, the Holy Scriptures encourages us to do personal check for ourselves if we’re still in the faith. 2 Corinthians 13:5 Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves… Personal evaluation helps put life in check. It helps check and balance character, business, skills, and others, whether they are in the correct conditions.
Now that you’ve forgiven yourself for your failures last year, you can’t afford to lack character in this year. You can’t afford to continue to live without direction!
A life without direction is a life without destination.
We categorised some people as extraordinary because they added an extra to their ordinary! Extraordinary people are those who add extra when others stop at the ordinary! If you want an extraordinary result, you need an extra to add to your ordinary! What you need may be an extra energy, extra input, extra training, extra knowledge, extra strength, extra perspective, extra plan…
What do you think distinguished Usain Bolt as an athlete in the records he broke? An extra training! What do you think makes a farmer harvest more than others? An extra effort of planting! What distinguished the disciples of Jesus from the crowd? An extra commitment! They became so great that after their deaths we still remember them.
In those things you failed at, some people succeeded because they added EXTRA! Comfort zones prevent many high fliers from achieving their dreams. Know when to rest, know when to work. Know if it’s hard work you need or smart work. Know what to add. Know what you need an extra of! There is excuse for failing the first time, but there’s no excuse for failing again. Be responsible for your actions!
Now, what are the extra things we need to add to achieve results this time??? The following are ten (10) general things that you need extra in your journey to an exemplary life:
Success doesn’t happen by accident. It is a product of plan. Sometimes, we say successful people are lucky. But let me tell you that they made extra plans to be lucky. You can also workhard to be lucky. I’m not a fan a luck, but even if it exists, it is not for idle people. You can position yourself for opportunity.
Opportunity might have been coming to you but you didn’t know because of your position or perspective to life. You need to plan for it! It’s all about planning. Plan your work. Work your plan. Success responds to adequate and correct plan.
2. EXTRA PREPARATION
While in secondary school, I was taught 5ps : Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance. Have you ever wondered why two people will use the same ingredients to cook the same food yet it will taste differently? Being a good cook requires learning! It is not about the ingredients or utensils or cooker but about the cook!
While Rachel is learning to cook, Rebecca is learning to snapcat…. They can’t achieve the same result. You don’t pass exam by mistake. Preparation creates access for success. As an entrepreneur, you have to understand the place of preparation – preparation in building a good level of understanding for your pursuit; preparation for difficult and tough times; preparation for competitions in the market.
Check the preparation level of the things you failed at in the previous year. You can’t afford to launch out without preparation! There are many people doing what you do. What will differentiate you from others is your extra! If you’re a fashion designer, what will give you edge over others is your quality of preparation!
Quality of preparation determines the quality of performance. While you wake at 7am to live your day, someone else has been awake since 5am to plan and prepare for the day. You can’t expect the same level of success by night.
3. People.
You don’t need much people in your life. You only need the right set of people. You can’t be moving with people that loves the valley and expects to climb the mountain to the peak. Whenever you attempt climbing higher, they tell you, this place is comfortable. Let’s stay. It’s safe here. But aeroplane, though, safe at the harbour, is safer in the sky.
The previous year was like that because of the people you moved with. You are the summary of the people in your life. The people in your life today determines the people in your future. Check it, do you have people that challenge you around you? The kind of people around you really matters. Check our leaders today (whether political or religious leaders), they were together when they were young!
See, whenever I look at my circle of friends, I’m always glad of the future… I have friends aiming to be presidents, leaders of international organisations, foremost personalities of firms, and topmost entrepreneurs. Thank God for bringing people to my life, but I defined who they are in my life.
4. Priority
Priority gives life order. It defines a man’s life. It defines what a man spends time, energy and money on. The value of your life is a function of your priorities. Your priority as a Christian youth that wants to be at the peak of your career or business in years to come should be different from people with no future ambition.
Define your life. Define your priority. What are the things you value in your life? What are the things that you don’t need?
When others are reading, attending seminars and workshops, all to add value, you are going about looking for the lastest shoes, clothes, bags, phones, etc. It’s not as it these things are bad, but you need to have priorities. You won’t be going to tantalizer to eat assorted meal when there’s nothing tantalising about your life!
5. PRAYER
God told us to pray, not for praying sake, but because He would answer. An extra prayer may be what you need. Sometimes, you worry too much. Worry can’t change anything, only prayer does.
When I say extra prayer, I’m not talking about increasing your prayer points when praying or raising your voice. It’s about making your prayer effective. Prayer reflects who you are. Someone who sings is called singer, someone who prays is PRAYER.
Check your prayer life! Why not add an extra prayer to become extraordinary! Elijah was a man like we are. But he became extraordinary with prayer! Pray more, worry less.
6. Productivity
Extra productivity demands extra inputs. Whatever you produce, produce it well. One day, it will come back to produce you! Extra!
The person you are making cloth for may become the first lady. If you do it well, you’d become her official fashion designer.
7. Perspective
Whatever you see is a function of perspective. Some people are naturally pessimists. They don’t see good in what people do. When an idea is being shared, they see limitations first.
Have an extra perspective in 2018. Those who said Facebook will never work came to be employed by Mark Zuckerberg. Be optimistic!
8. PERSISTENCY
Those who give up never climbs up! Check on the things you gave up on. Check others who did successfully. The difference was AN EXTRA PERSISTENCE.
Are you familiar with the saying, a drop of water makes a mighty ocean? What makes a drop become an ocean is persistency!
If you don’t give up on the way, you will get to your destination! If you don’t give up in the process, you’ll achieve the result. Be persistent!
9. PECULIARITY
This is about what makes you different from others. Your skills, abilities, talents, gifts, etc. Work on what makes you different from others. This is an edge, an extra privilege to be extraordinary.
When you see a good poem, you feel the poet is extraordinary. He’s not. He’s only using his God given talent. When you people who draws or paint, I do think they are extraordinary because I can’t do what they do. I had to realise that peculiarities give people edge over others. Discover your peculiarities! They can add extra to your ordinary!
10. Purpose
The purpose of your daily living is the purpose of your entire life. Purpose defines life. You can’t afford to continue to live without purpose for living. Every great man has something to live for. What are you living for?
These ten things look simple, but they are the extra things makes people people stands out of the ordinary to become extraordinary!
Plan. Prepare. Have people. Prioritise. Pray. Be productive. Change your perspective. Be persistent. Know your peculiarities. Discover and live your purpose!
Elemide Benjamin
Elemide Benjamin
Elemide Benjamin is a writer and spoken word poet who has graced stages across the country to perform. He’s a voice reaching out to young people for purpose and potential discovery. He loves acting, teaching, and solving problems. He’s the visioneer of The Great Minds.
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