GAINNING MASTERY FROM INSIDE YOU By Muyiwa Afolabi Gaining mastery, gaining mastery, what really does it mean to gain mastery? What is the meaning of mastery? Why do you need to gain mastery in any area of your life and in this case your career? What does it mean to master something? I personally believe mastery is the ability to fully understand or comprehend something to the end that you can effectively control or utilize it for a desired purpose. Gaining mastery is the ability to acquire the required understanding and handle of something for you to be able to manipulate or control as you please. For example no matter how much you love cars and appreciate the beauty of any steel on wheels, your fulfilment can not be complete until you learn how to drive cars and you can drive it successfully. Some people love to fly and for them learning to fly a plane will bring so much pleasure. Lets tweak this a bit, there are some things you must gain mastery over in order to achieve a higher purpose in life for example in academics, for you to become a graduate you must have a good handle and mastery of subjects like mathematics and the English language in Nigeria, your physics, further maths and the likes are critical subjects you must master to become an engineer. Going way back to the basics a child must learn and master the ability to walk, talk, listen and reason intelligently to fit perfectly into the human community and not be regarded as a social misfit or physically challenged. Mastery is the ability to take on a situation, an institution, a skill, concept or practice; understand it perfectly to the point where one can benefit as well as use it for the purpose for which it is originally intended. Marriage for example is an institution many, many single people dont understand and many married people cant manage effectively because they lack mastery over the emotional, psychological and physical play of the institution and concept. Isnt it amazing that after so much exposure and experience many still think and advocate that love as a feeling is priority over purpose and vision for marriage to work? No wonder the index for divorce rate is consistently spiking in-spite of the love professed by intending couples, counsellors and custodians of this sacred institution. Mastery is taking over, taking control and charge of something in order to understand it, comprehend it and utilize it for the purpose intended and in return experience good reward and fulfilment. Please take a look around you today and you may discover one or two things that make you unhappy about your life; things you desperately want to change or see improvement on. Truth is the changes you desire to see may not happen until you change. Your life only gets better when you as an individual get better. You cannot change your condition until you change you, you cannot see around you what you dont have in you. A magnet is a substance that has in it what it takes to attract only metals, a stone or a piece of wood lack what it takes to attract metals even though the aluminum may look like it, it lacks what it takes for attraction to a magnet so this is beyond how you look, its more about whats in you. Your life can only attract what you already have in you, so if you want anything in life instead of chasing it, just develop in you what it takes to attract it and it will come to you. Let me break this down, you see you can never become a successful director if you dont have it in you; if you lack what it takes to be suitable for the position and to manage it well. This is beyond your dapper appearance and eloquence, if you dont have director in you, no matter how hard you chase the position it will keep running and eluding you because you dont have in you what it takes to magnetise the position or office. Anytime you want something, start working on your inside to attract it on the outside. When you want anything, instead of fighting and stressing and struggling, simply work on your inside to attract that which you want and that which you want will locate you seamlessly. For example i get many calls, messages and personal visits from people who want me to teach or coach them on how to become successful motivational speakers. They have missed it from the start, I am not a motivational speaker, I am a teacher, i am a coach, I dont leave my audience excited, jumpy and full of positive thoughts, most times i leave my audience somber, thinking, reasonable, facing reality and dealing with their issues, i dont want them just thinking they can make it, i want them knowing what to do and working on themselves to become successful. I am driven by results not just excitement and wishful thinking. So if you want to be a motivational speaker which is not a bad thing, we cannot be attracted to each other because i am not one. I am only attracted to people who are passionate change agents who practice what they teach and can sacrifice to see real positive change not eloquent and charismatic opinion leaders who psyche their audience yet dont empathise and sacrifice to feel what their audience or followers feel - going through though and rough with them. Im just wired like that; Im a big fan of Mandela and Rev. Martin Luther King. So in life you attract people and situations that connect with your personal make up and content. There is nobody that is 100% on top of his personal issues and challenges; more precisely career issues. We all have weaknesses and challenges either here or there. The unfortunate thing is one issue may be strong enough to stop you or abort you career vision and progression. However if you decide today to work on these issues you will eventually come out of it and there will be no stopping you in reaching your desired destination. The possibility of reaching your destination is more likely when you work on you to deal with the weakness with that power to stop you. Dont bury it, ignore it or pretend its not there or people dont know, face it, confront it and deal with it. Any part of your life can only improve on the outside when you work on it from the inside. Dont try working on all your weaknesses at the same time, youll become overwhelmed and wear yourself out. Deal with it one at a time and one after another. You can bring up your skill level also in a particular area of weakness in career. Write down the skills you want to improve. Number them in order of priority or alternatively, your will, urgency and capacity to deal with the weakness now. Afterwards make a plan or a schedule for accomplishment. For example I know very many intelligent employees with great minds and intelligence, full of solution and answers but they have a major challenge with communication skills. They cant just get their messages across correctly, effectively and clearly. Hence, theyll rather keep quiet and prefer to share their opinions with friends and colleagues outside the meeting, they avoid the embarrassment of grammatical errors during meetings so no one can really tell how brilliant or resourceful they are except very close colleagues. As much as Im an advocate of preserving our local languages and dialects, English is the formal language of our corporate world and existence as a nation. So you have no choice but to master the language. If for instance this is your weakness it could limit how far you can progress in career. So start working on it. Start reading all kinds of books, career, professional, story books, novels, magazines and the likes to build your vocabulary. To improve your diction and pronunciations start seeing foreign movies and foreign channels. Invest lots of hours into this. Avoid local language movies and programs for now, youre already good at that. Begin to hang around people that speak well, and try to speak well too, please speak straight, smooth English not tainted with any foreign accent either American, British or Dubai. Speak good English, ok? Your own need of mastery may not be communication or language, whatever it is decide to work on it, invest time and energy, never give up, keep doing it and be patient with yourself, Rome wasnt built in a day they say, no matter how long keep doing it and one day youll discover youve mastered the weakness. Whatever office or position you desire, put the capacity, competence and eligibility in you and that position and office will come to you, stop chasing, stop stressing stop politicking, have it in you, it will eventually come to you. Enjoy your day.
Posted on: Tue, 16 Dec 2014 06:03:37 +0000
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