By Bayo Ogunmupe
In your lifelong pursuit of excellence, your willingness to work smart, go the extra mile will open doors for you. The best way to help your ward is teaching him to endure some discomfort. This is because the best things are hard to come by; and if you shy away from difficulty and discomfort, you will miss out from lessons. Mastering a new skill is hard. Building a business entails courage. Writing a book is tiresome. Marriage and parenting are hazardous. Staying in shape and maintaining physical wellness are hard. But all of these are amazingly compelling and well worth every bit of effort you can muster. When you become good at doing hard things, then you can do anything you put your mind to.
However, in life, uncertainty is inevitable and must be embraced in order to achieve your life ambition. Acting within the spectre of uncertainty forces you out into the open where opportunity is waiting. Thus, learning to live with uncertainty early in life is indispensable for your greatness. Starting a business for example, could be very worthwhile, but if you are scared of uncertainty,you will skip it and miss the bounties therefrom. Continually cowering in the face of uncertainty spells doom for prosperity and entrepreneurship development.
Indeed, lack of initiative holds more people back than intelligence ever could. It does not matter if you own the intelligence of a genius, you cannot change anything or make progress without diligent efforts. There is a huge difference between knowing how to do something and actually doing it. Knowledge and intelligence are useless to a person unwilling to take action. Always praise your ward for making effort by taking action, not for his intelligence. When you praise your child for his effort, not his intelligence, you are bringing attention to something he can control. This is immensely beneficial because it teaches him persistence; that progress through hard work is possible. This gives him confidence, for he then sees himself "in control" of his success in life.
Conversely, emphasizing his God given intelligence takes the sail out of your child's control; providing no good formula for responding to failure. In turn, your child may begin to think of his innate intelligence as an end in itself; making him to disregard the importance of initiative, courage and effort to learn and grow. But not everything in life goes as planned. Tell your ward that failure isn't a bad thing. Unexpected obstacles may crop up to shift perspectives and strengthen his resolve to pursue success. Besides, the career destination your heir is in love with may not be feasible after all. For example the esteemed diplomatic career I trained for, was truncated by military rule. But my subsequent shift into journalism and academics and journalism was no less satisfying.
Focusing less on the future but more on what you can do now, will be beneficial no matter what the future brings. Read inspiring books, learn and practice useful skills to build yourself into an Internet guru. Be adventurous by seeking real world experiences. Cultivate healthy relationships for such efforts will assist you in any future circumstances that come your way. Incredible distance can be covered over time with tiny steps. Most people fritter away their time on frivolities such as watching television, social media and football. A year of the rigmarole invested in practising painting, website designing or writing a blog will earn you accolades as an opinion leader or man of learning.
Besides, goals don't make things happen, only rituals do. As a parent, your goal must be to be a great role model while your ritual should be the time and effort you commit to setting good examples for your heirs each day. As an entrepreneur, your goal is to build a great enterprise while your ritual is your daily work ethic combined with your marketing, management and sales strategies. You will triumph over evil if your life is founded on integrity, you hang around people of character and you are generous to others.
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