Start before you start

Figuring out what to do in life- Career, business, Marry who, Join which political party or perhaps invest in which stock-  is one of the most important things you have do to ensure success in life, yet it’s often one of the most poorly thought out decisions.

This is the basis of our reflections in this article. Life is such that we always have an urge to start something. All the time is a time to start something in life. Sometime back in the same blog, I wrote that every season in life has something special that we must do and accomplish- TheAssignments in life. But then when we want to these assignments we must start but starting. Doing the outdoor work. This is the preliminary work.

Every day is an opportunity to do something new or become what you have been trying to be. And so every new day is and can be an opportunity to reinvent your image. Before you do these assignments consider these few tips.

If you want to succeed in life and defeat bigger and better-funded competitors then your focus and effort should be do first to the first things first.

When you want to start something in life say a business venture, don’t rush it. Don’t just pick what you know, or what you used to do, or even what you dreamed of doing when you were a teenager. It’s way more fun to run a successful vegetable stand than to be a bankrupt comedy club owner. Don’t fall into the trap of doing the easy, cool or fun things in life. Think about it for a good amount of time and consider the most basic things in life.

In a free society, the government doesn’t control who gets the right to start a what. Anyone can do it—in most cases without a license, a permit, or a training course.

First, when you start out in anything in life you must PLEDGE TO KNOW MORE ABOUT YOUR FIELD THAN ANYONE ELSE. You must read, learn and understand about that field. This will be your greatest value you can add to your own life as well as to the life of others. Research about it and get everything there is to learn. Be an expert in that field. Learn all the skills there are to use in your plan, research about all the legal, moral, technological, political and spiritual implications of what you are starting.

Remember always that MONEY IS A TOOL, NOT AN END IN ITSELF. When starting out in life, you don’t have to think more on money you have and will get. My advice would be that if you don’t run out of money, you get to keep playing. If you end up with more money than you started with, you win. Be consistent and honest with yourself and plan the future with the most reasonable target you want. Of course without money, there is no business. Run out of money and your creditors will shut you down, your employees will leave, and your spouse will worry.

HAVE PLANS THAT ARE PROTECTIBLE. Good and profitable ventures in life will certainly attract competitors. What are you going to do when they show up? It is only better if you come up with a barrier to entry or competitive insulation. Barriers can include patents, brand names, exclusive distribution deals, trade secrets (like the recipe for Coke) or first mover advantage.

KNOW IF WHAT YOU START WILL BE ADJUSTABLE. Remember how excited everyone got about the missiles the U.S. used during the Gulf War? You could aim after you launched it. You could adjust the flight along the way. You need a model in life similar to the one used by the Americans if you’re hoping to maximize your chances of success. For everything you start in life, think how you will overcome challenges that you will face.

GET MENTORED. Nowhere does it say you’ve got to do this all alone. Find someone who’s come before you and ask for help. They will always be odds in life and if you have a mentor you’ve someone to sort you out. The mentor you choose should be convenient and he should have life experience and a network of connections that really help you in the journey.

Be sure that what you are starting you can BE WILLING TO BET EVERYTHING YOU OWN ON IT. If what you are starting you cannot guarantee anything you have, then it’s not worth. Chances are you’ll not give it the effort and time in life. If you cannot lose your energy, rent, life, friends and family on I think it’s not worth going for it.

After considering that you can now start. Have a reflective life. Remember to stay in touch with me at jeremiahwakamu@gmail.com or on Facebook Jeremiaho Wakamu to keep this discussion going. And again referrals though you social media network/connection and word of mouth is the best you can do for this blog

Have you completed all your Assignment?

I bet if we went through our lists of to dos, closets and drawers we would find signs of in-completion: undone task(s) in the list, a pile of magazines and book(s) we have not read; a guitar that we never learned how to play and uncompleted project/assignment. This is because we are a times people who are great in starting things and bad in following them through. And what about all the emails you’ve not answered? We are almost midyear and we ask what about New Year’s resolutions we find unmotivated to finish?

I guess this sounds familiar to most or some of us. And if this is so, here are a few things to consider before leaving something unfinished:

The hardest part is starting, not finishing. Starting something is already a big achievement in itself. Most people get stuck in the thinking phase. They never get to taking action on their ideas. Taking one little step towards your goals, is already some progress. You are on the right track. All you’ve to do is take more steps and little by little you will get there.

Procrastinate consciously. You’ve to be honest with yourself and say it out loud – “I know that if I postpone this task for later, I will feel less motivated to complete it. I fully realize that there’s no better time to complete it than NOW and I am deliberately making myself work harder.” If you still procrastinate, you will do it consciously. But more likely, you’ll complete what you’ve started.

Apply ‘All or nothing’ principle.  Something is either done or it is not. When it is not done, it does not matter if it is half done, nearly done or is going to get done some time soon or later – the result is always the same – IT IS NOT DONE. Therefore, make a commitment that any new task you start it’ll be completely finished. No excuses and exceptions.

Perfectionism is the worst enemy of completion. You can improve something for as long as you live. This process is endless. No matter how great you do something, there will always be some way to improve your work. So if you have a perfectionist streak in you, approach every task as a draft – do it as quickly as possible and if necessary make a few adjustments later.

Created in Eden Learnt out of Eden

Relationships and marriages are challenging. It’s really hard to believe people’s ideas on what romantic relationships and marriages are. Everyone have their own definition of what a perfect one is. For some, it’s having a perfect mate who they can click on everything – the proverbial lock and key sort of.

We however live in an imperfect world where even the best relationships become tested, pulled, stretched and strained by life’s circumstances.

And at the core of these moments of frustration, disappointment and even anger when they are tested, rest the desire for our chosen partner in life to be perfect.  The need for perfection mainly stems from our desire to fulfill the dream of a young lady and man about what true love is. This idea of a perfect relationship may be far from the truth and a hard truth to accept.

Hallmark cards, romantic comedies, poems and quotes, love songs, romance novels, parental influence or societal conventions stress this idealistic view of relationships as being perfect.

The unfortunate reality is that there is no such thing as the “perfect mate.”  We are human and as humans we are messy, complicated and fallen creatures.  In Genesis, Adam and Eve introduced sin into the world.  We do not inherent their sin but we remain flawed in our sinful flesh.  Any notion of perfection is the deception conceived by our mind into believing in a reality that does not exist.

Soul mates are the imperfection of two spirits made perfect in the union of love. People have shortcomings.

 

More so, what we forget is the simple biblical truth that what we know marriage and romantic relationships is limited. The true mirror of what it is supposed to be is what we lack. God introduces marriage in Eden but I can say if too unfortunate, he sends Adam and Eve away from the garden of the Lord when they sin. Given this circumstances, most of what we learn about it is actually when humans are out of Eden where there was perfection. People learn to live together in an imperfect world. They learn to relate while there is pain, suffering, and have to work and when they have a definition of good and bad. It’s not precise how long the first beings stayed in Eden and get instructions from God as he visited them in the cool of the day, but I guess perhaps by the time they left Eden, they had just enough ideas of how to rear children but no experience.  It’s actually learnt when man is away from God and he has to constantly look onto God for direction.

Marriage has been learnt in a world when everyone seeks the best for themselves. Because of our sinful nature, there is pride, deception and lust and in all these we hope to find the beauty of marriage. The confusion goes on.

Marriage having to be learnt out of Eden should not however limit and hinder our view of marriage and family as an institution that is real and important. It should work. Indeed the Lord does not withhold anything good to them that he loves and he has given us everything we need for our salvation. The reveled things are to us our benefit and the concealed things the delight of the King of Glory. We need not complain that the reason why it’s not working is because God does not love us and has not given us sufficient reasons and ways it should work. This is his only privilege to let it be a mystery. We cannot summon God to explain it.

God knows the only relationship of perfect love we could understand is marriage and so uses this example to mirror the relationship that Jesus has with the church- his own body. I would ask if this is what we can understand why we should not even make it radiant by praying and seeking to make love evident in how we treat each other in romantic relationships.

Our deliberate focus on our partner’s beauty, generosity, compassion, and spiritual faith, strength of character, forgiveness, nurturing spirit, motherly/fatherly love, and honesty should all transform our way of seeing each other on daily basis. There will be frustrating behaviours with your partner but this confirm that we are not perfect beings. The behaviours are as a result of imperfections. Instead of just pointing fingers to our patners and blaming them for all the bad they are, seek to love them and make them better bring out perfection in them. Be committed to make them make up for the areas that do not come up too well.

The lesson we should learn is that imperfection should not weaken true love, undermine healthy relationships and prohibit life-long marriages that continue to thrive year after year.  The foundation of all relationships needs to be God and Jesus Christ.  A marriage rooted in Biblical Principles is still a union of two imperfect characters but it is made perfect by having faith in God.

The kingdom principle of love requires that we choose to reach out and yield ourselves and our resources to the needs of others whether we feel good about it or not. Demand for privileges and the pressure to claim and cling to our rights ceases.

Do not focus on your own perfection because you have your own weaknesses. But ask what you can do to make your marriage become better. But also focus more on God because unless he becomes our priority, everything else will be confused. If God does not build a house, it’s all in vain for the builders and if the Lord does not watch over a city the watchmen stay awake for nothing in the night.

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Going through life without complaining

I have realized how much we can complain. You cannot imagine how much sometimes we painfully say we do not have a thing; sometimes we say we have too much or little of this or that. You see the other day while thinking of the many times I’ve fallen into the trap of openly showing my displeasure with what I own and what I do not, I realized that I complained of things that are either of little significance in life or if they were, they are not a big deal. We can do without them and still become successful. I mean they needed not worry us too much.

Sometimes we complain that we have not as the talent a friend has, we are not loved as they are by their parents, girlfriends and friends. Other times, its we have no great names as they have, we do not live in a big house as they do, we are not performing well in our careers/academics as they are, our body is not fit as ‘theirs’, we are too young or old to do a project or we’ve no money to buy a luxury. We have ‘no opportunities’ like they have, we claim.

Sometimes we complain because we are jealous of what others have and we want to be like them.

These things of course are important to us. I only have a problem when complaining direct what I think, dream, talk and do always. Complaining will become a problem to us when we note that it becomes a hindrance to us to start thinking and appreciating what we already have than what we do not have. When we fail to take care of what we have and work with it because we are complaining all the time that will become our outdoing.

Complaining always close our eyes so that we cannot see that indeed we have too much than what we don’t to make it in life. Complaining is as bad as saying that what we have is not as good. It makes us accuse ourselves of ‘inabilities’ to do something. It makes us want to be aggressive for nothing trying to be someone else. We think we are inferior because of what we do not possess. And this is life, where everyone has a unique gifting so that we can make a society functional. We are made to complement each other. Why should we complain and want to be somebody/something other than what we are? When we complain, we are simply saying deep within ourselves that someone can do my role better than me and I can do their role better than themselves. Yet we do not have their skill or talent.

When we go through life without complaining, we become happier to pursue our dreams. We become contented to run our course knowing we can be excellent and win. We run our race and are victorious in our terrain.