Every now and again in seminars, training and workshops I meet very intelligent and knowledgeable people. I hear them speak and immediately know they are given to wide and deep study and are quite exposed. Many of these people travel and have worked overseas, some with multinationals and many others in very well structured and sophisticated organizations. They speak with impressive reasoning and are very logical in their postulations, arguments and suggestions. You’ll just immediately know these guys are made up of very good stuff. But I look at their career situations and challenges and wonder how people of such level of thinking and reasoning can become cheap preys of career frustration and underperformance. Then gradually I began to understand the fact that having something in your mind doesn’t necessarily mean you apply it in your life. For example a man may know a lady he’s desperately chasing after does not really love or want him; she’s just interested in benefits, yet he can’t make a decision on this truth to walk away. He’s too weakly in love to do that. Habits, mind pre-sets, emotional and sentimental factors, identity crisis, and the opinion of so called important people often make application of obvious truths difficult. I think one of the reasons why we really don’t improve despite all we know, is the reluctance to accept our faults and weaknesses. We’ll prefer to ignore these weaknesses and pretend they’re not there rather than accept them and try to subdue them. I’ve heard many lazy bosses call their subordinates lazy. I’ve heard many ignorant leaders call their subordinates ignorant. I’ve heard many selfish people call others selfish. I’ve heard many greedy people call others greedy. I’ve heard many immoral spiritual leaders call others sinful and I’ve heard many corrupt and undisciplined Nigerians refer to political office holders and government officials as corrupt. When you refuse to accept a weakness or a challenge, you’ll hardly make the move to improve on it. For instance I had quite an exploitative and abusive upbringing, I wasn’t particularly anyone’s favorite and it was made clear in every way possible hence, I grew up an angry fellow. I react very quickly and aggressively to any treatment indicative of subjugation, exploitation and cheating, I couldn’t stand anyone taking advantage of me; I’ll fight and defend myself in all possible ways. At times I get so angry that I become verbally very toxic, because of this weakness, I kept enough distance from everyone because familiarity indeed brings contempt and I couldn’t handle contempt. With time, subsequent to pressure from my wife, counsel from spiritual leaders and mentors, severe criticism from my employees and team members I began to work on it to become better. I think I’m getting better, I believe my team members can attest to the fact that I’m friendlier, more considerate, tolerant and understanding than I used to be. I’ve learnt to accept the fact that people treat me the way they do not because of whom I am but because of how they are. So it’s their problem not mine. Dear friends, to go far in life and in your career pursuit, you must long for and desire rapid improvement. I’d like to share with you this morning certain behaviours that will rapidly improve your overall life quality and enhance your pursuit of excellence: 1.Be adaptive and flexible. You are not the absolute reference and SI unit for anything in this life. Yes it’s good to be principled and uphold personal norms and belief systems, but please don’t impose or enforce your own beliefs on someone else or other people. Please, I’m not saying don’t advocate or promote what you believe is the best ways of doing things, what I’m saying is don’t condemn, reject, criticize or judge others if they fail to agree with your stand or judgments. Life I believe is about outcomes and results. People may doubt your opinion or position on certain issues, but no one can doubt a wonderful result, performance or outcome. Don’t be a judge, be a helper, an encourager, a coach. Everyone can’t and in fact shouldn’t be like you, so be adaptive be flexible. 2.Admit when you are wrong. One of the things many people find so hard to accept is the truth about their mistakes and errors.We love to explain away our errors and mistakes; we hate to take the blame and responsibility. To us everything is hardly our fault. Something and someone must be responsible for that wrong doing, error or mistake. In this part of the world when we realize no one or situation can be blamed for our obvious mess we put it straight on satan, the devil must be the reason behind this my misconduct; it can’t be me, it must be the devil. It is the devil that pushed me. Dear friend, accept when you’re wrong, take responsibility, start every probe into a negative development with you as the first candidate under scrutiny. Ask what you could have done different to avert the mess. Don’t keep blaming your subordinates or the boss or management for everything wrong. Start with you! This I promise is the best way to improve your performance. Admit when wrong. Find it easy to say ‘I made a mistake’ anytime you do, it’s refreshing I tell you and it immediately triggers in you the quest for remedy and solution. 3.Change your mind. Many of us today have continued for many years in career paths and life journeys that are frustrating, tough and dissatisfying. We probably ended up on this journey due to poor judgment or peer pressure and suddenly we know we’ve made a huge mistake. Please do not continue on that sorrowful path, change your mind. Many single folks today are in very terrible and abusive relationships that they know will eventually result in crisis and disaster should they end up getting married, but they believe they have invested too much in emotions, finance, sacrifice and years to give up on the relationship or the person involved, they can’t change their minds – where will they start from? They think, what will people say, hence they are willing to endure over 50 years of an unhappy and totally frustrating marriage and the possibility of a divorce or untimely death, raising dysfunctional kids that will become a menace to the society, because they’re too weak to change their minds on a wrong choice in friendship, courtship and dating You see if you are supposed to be going for an occasion in Port Harcourt from Lagos and many hours into the journey you suddenly realize the vehicle you boarded is actually headed for Abuja, it will be absolutely foolish to continue to Abuja no matter how far gone, because your occasion is at Port Harcourt. Change your mind no matter how far gone so as not to end up in the wrong destination. It is far better to arrive late at your occasion than not to show up because you wouldn’t change your mind when you miss it. Lastly, accept your imperfect state. You are not perfect; you will make mistakes again and again. It is human to err. Accepting your imperfect state is a mark of intelligence and courage. Be willing to adapt with new information, forgive yourself and move on, you can’t change the past, so focus on building a better future. Dear friend, you’re indeed better than this.
Posted on: Fri, 25 Oct 2013 12:15:12 +0000
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