You must give bad up to go up

                              By Bayo Ogunmupe.

        People can be successful in various ways, areas and forms. But they have something in common. There are certain core skills they master. They achieve these skills by giving up certain bad or hindering habits which consume their time and hold them back. So whatever your goal is and whichever area you want to succeed in, tis worth knowing these top skills and investing in them. The most important of these skills is focus. This is the secret most winners possess. People who concentrate in a particular vocation are those who become successful at a young age. Pick one thing as your focused aim- before you say 'money,' success is yours. Winners are rarely excited by money. It is their passion that leads them to wealth, meaning making money is the consequence of the passion, money isn't really the  goal.

    The benefit of focus is that you will be a true expert in a specific domain. Winners are only great at a particular profession, not in many areas. If you focus on many areas, you wont be able to spend time on what makes you great. No one can get to the highest level by remaining as a generalist. My mentor and solicitor, Nigeria's first minister of Information, Dr Kolawole Balogun used to say, "Find the one thing you can do well and don't do anything else." I found that to do well at what you love, you have to give up many things. Being willing to give up some things you love, like watching football, in order to focus on what has the greatest impact isn't an easy lesson to learn. But the earlier you embrace it, the sooner can dedicate yourself to excellence  in what matters most.

    Resourcefulness is the second skill successful people possess. If there is a  problem, there is a solution is the mode of thinking of winners. They keep their focus on solutions. Moreover, you have to take risks so that you not regret at age 80, those things neglected to do. Creativity is another name for resourcefulness. The author of The Five Faces of Genius, Annette Moser-Wellman asserts, "The most valuable resource you bring to your work and to your firm is your creativity. More than what you get done, more than the role you play, more than your title, more than your output-it's your ideas that matter." Despite the importance of creative problem solving, few people possess the skill in abundance.

    The characteristics of creative thinkers is that they value ideas. highly creative people are dedicated to ideas. They don't rely on their talent alone; they rely on their discipline. Their imagination is like a second skin. They manipulate it to the fullest. Creativity is about having lots of ideas and exploring them. Winners love exploring options for it helps to stimulate the imagination. The greatest physicist of the 20th century Albert Einstein put it this way: "Imagination is more important than knowledge." Like creative thinkers, winners embrace ambiguity. They don't feel the need to stamp out uncertainty in life. They see inconsistencies in life as opportunities for problem solving and very often they take delight in exploring those gaps  and using their imagination to fill them.

    Like creative thinkers, successful people do not fear failure. Creativity demands the ability to be unafraid of failure. Anxiety is the essential condition of intellectual and artistic creation. Creativity requires a willingness to look stupid. They don't allow ideas that don't work prevent them from finding new ideas that do work. Thinking creatively adds value to everything you do. Creativity increases your capabilities, it enables you see what everybody has seen but think what nobody  has thought so that you can do what nobody else has done. Creative thinking lies along inventiveness and innovation where you break new grounds helping you to do old things in new ways. So seeing the world in new ways, you provide new solutions that add value to life.

    Three, the ability to learn from your mistakes is the final most valuable skill of winners. They've had to overcome many risks to get to the top. For success, they have to adopt the mindset of living at the edge of naked existence, living at the edge of their capabilities to succeed. Winners aren't afraid to take risks and they accept the mistakes that go along with them, because the lesson lies in failure. That's how winners find growth and success.