By Goke Ilesanmi
The road to success is very rough, thorny and hilly. In short, it is worse than any other very bad road. That is why it is not plied by many people. It requires a lot of bulldozing to make it passable. It is only those who are determined and can endure that are prepared to do the travelling along it. Many people prefer to take a smooth, wide and straight road that leads nowhere.
Comparison
Success is about getting up one more time than one has fallen. Every ambitious person travels on the road of life, with optimism for some measure of success. Very often, one is his or her own worst enemy as he or she ignorantly builds stumbling blocks on the road leading to the destination of the target success and happiness.
One may have encountered challenges that have blown him or her off track, but one alone has the unique ability to choose whether he or she is going to just park there beside the road or turn on his or her indicator and move ahead.
Tendency to blame others
There are basic causes of living an unsuccessful life. If you know them, you can avoid them. One of the major impediments along the road to success is the tendency to always blame others. We are masters at pinning the blame on others when things are not going our way. Dr. Bill Newman, a distinguished Australian speaker says in some countries when the government is appalling, those in business with a will to win will still be successful irrespective of the political party that is in power. This implies that the real battle is not with the others but with oneself.
Bad nostalgia
Another impediment to success is the tendency to blame oneself. This impediment can prove to be a disaster for one unless he or she does something about it. Though one may have physical problems or a tough start in life, it is time to stop one’s pity-party.
One needs to stop blaming his or her poor education. If one does not have formal education, there is the brain to use. One must never allow his or her yesterday to cloud his or her today. It is time to get out of the slow lane and move fast. Remember that past failures are guideposts for future success. Newman says it is easier to lie on a couch digging into the past than to sit on a chair facing the future.
According to John Keats, the legendary scholar and poet, failure constitutes the highway to success in as much as every discovery of what is false leads us to look for what is true. Remember that some people are like teabags that will not unleash their latent potential until they go through some hot water.
Positive exploitation of your problems
One needs to turn his or her problems into a success catalyst to be able to easily travel his or her road of accomplishment. It is said that the only place where people do not have problems is the cemetery.
This is untrue because some heartless people still go round cemeteries to disinter dead bodies for the purpose of selling the body parts to those indulging in rituals and other fetish engagements. So the dead too have problems, especially in this part of the world. We do not want to be confronted with changes or problems. When God wants us to achieve success through challenges, we want to avoid them.
As John Maxwell, a renowned leadership expert and motivational speaker puts it, “We want deliverance without disturbance. We want the benefits without the bills. We want success without sacrifice. But it just doesn’t happen that way. We cannot afford to drift into a lifestyle that places repose above results. We must welcome the changes that God’s Spirit brings and accept them on His conditions and not ours.”
Lack of goals
Success has become more problematic since we became a highly mobilised, technologically advanced society. Anybody that wants to achieve success in life must decide what success means to him or her, set some goals in this direction and make every action he or she takes on a daily basis successful. He or she must decide how he or she wants to travel along the success path to his or her destination of accomplishment. Since many of one’s goals are based on money-making, one will have to earn this money by providing a quality product or service to other people.
Jim Davidson, a popular human-resource-management consultant and professional speaker says the vehicle or means you will use to earn this money will be either a career or a job. Since there is a vast difference between a career and a job in terms of potential benefits, you need to see clearly what each involves. A job is that which you do just because you want to earn your living. But a career is that which you are passionate about and ready to do for long or forever for the purpose of building a reputation.
Reinforcement
A person without goals turns off the success highway too soon. Such people wait for something to turn up even when they turn everything down. As a way of motivating such people into action, they need to be educated on some of the accompanying benefits of goal-setting. Harrisson Salisbury says there is no short cut to life. Those who prefer taking short cuts are those that do not like to get out of their comfort zone. It is so easy to go into a comfort zone rather than go on with the fight and achieve great things.
Avoiding time-wasting
Just like taking the wrong path or short cuts, one also needs to be very careful not to fall prey to the temptation of taking the unnecessarily long route to success, thereby wasting his or her time. Time is the most precious thing that one has. One therefore need not waste or squander it. As you begin each new day of your life, one thing you have in common with every other living person is the same amount of time. If you want to use your time wisely as you seek success, you must understand that time is money. The actual value of your time is determined by the size of your goals and your commitment to them.
Farewell
Most times, it is impossible to develop a plan to get to where one wants to go unless one first determines where he or she is now. By taking time for a check-up in one’s life now, one will have a better understanding of the talents and resources he or she has available as one plans for his or her future. Imagine yourself standing on top of a hill, ready to go down the other side. You know that going downhill is a lot easier than going uphill. But your cherished success is uphill.
Segmenting the word “Success” (alphabetically), Maxwell says “S” stands for “Select your goals”; “U” for “Unlock your latent potential”; the first “C” for “Commit yourself to God’s plan”; the second “C” for “Chart your course”; “E” for “Expect problems”; the first “S” for “Stand firm on your commitment” and the last “S” for “Surrender everything to God”. This means success is a product of challenges. To achieve it, you must be willing to embrace its accompaniments. Go for success NOW.
GOKE ILESANMI, Editor-in-Chief/CEO of https://www.gokeilesanmi.com.ng and Managing Consultant/CEO of Gokmar Communication Consulting, is a Certified Public Speaker/Emcee, (Business) Communication Specialist, Motivational Speaker, Career Management Coach, Renowned Book Reviewer, Corporate Leadership Expert and Editorial Consultant.
Tel: +234(0)8056030424; +234(0)8187499425
Email: info@gokeilesanmi.com.ng; gokeiles2010@gmail.com