THE BEST WAY

In pursuit of our life goals, we are often faced with failures and challenges that make some choose the easy way rather than the best way toward facing life’s issues.

What is the easy way?

If you know our people, you will understand that we are good at making easy choices, decisions and conclusions. Personally, I love easy, as a matter fact tough choices are not always the best choices either. But I have come to understand that the easy way is not always the best way and I believe it is much more profitable to make best choices in whatever situation we face.

Our people always find it easy to pass the bulk rather than ask critical questions. If a student doesn’t do well in school, he blames the bad lecturer, the distractive friends, the manipulative girlfriend or boyfriend, the unsupportive parents, the corrupt government, the religious leader or minister and even blames Almighty God. He blames every other person except himself. Smh, what a life!

Nothing can be further from the truth

As a Covenant University Alumni who paid rapt attention under the teachings of our Chancellor Dr. David Oyedepo A.K.A Papa, one of the quotes he frequently said stuck to me. It says

“When you point your index finger to anyone or anything, 3 fingers point back at you and the thumb acts as a witness to God. Therefore the bulk of the responsibility for the outcome of one’s life falls on the individual.”

I agree one hundred percent. He also says, “Responsibility is the price for greatness” and I totally agree too.

So what am I saying?

As an entrepreneur, I have always been tempted to pass the bulk too and I am not writing this to preach to the choir or polarize people. In fact, my team and I recently experienced a delay towards the day we set to launch a service we have been working on for over 12 months and the easy way could have been to blame my team mates, the present government and its forex policy, the economy, internet penetration, my family and friends and every other person or thing except myself. And I don’t in anyway mean problems and issues should not be “intelligently and constructively” discussed towards a positive conclusion.

I am simply trying to contribute my quota of insight because I believe that bad things prevail not necessarily because of the presence of bad people, but because of the silence of good people. In other words, darkness prevails simply because of the absence of light.

What I think is the best way

I believe the best way is accepting full responsibility and not even the bulk, I mean one hundred percent responsibility in every goal or assignment we set to do. I don’t mean we should isolate ourselves or not learn from others, as a matter of fact building a strong network of relationships and learning from others can never be over emphasized. What I mean is we have to be fully intentional in everything we do towards achieving our goals. Does this solve the problem of experiencing failures or challenges? Not necessarily, but accepting full responsibility places a demand on us to ensure that we do whatever it takes towards achieving our goals. Diana Nyad will put it this way, “Find a way”.

One of the demands of responsibility is having a positive mental attitude towards learning and gathering relevant information towards achieving our goals.

Studying about Sir Winston Churchill, I learnt that he won the WWII in his mind before the eventual defeat of Hitler. During the war, he said to Hitler that he should study English history and contemplate his doom. Wow! He could boldly say this because he was given to learning and history. He did an exhaustive study of his ancestor, John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, who led the armies of the Grand Alliance against the French in the early 18th century and this gave him the fortitude to make best choices towards defeating Hitler during the Second World War. Sir Churchill is a personality of history that we could credit the existence of the entire modern civil society simply because he was a learner. The big question is what if he did not defeat Hitler? I love this particular maxim by Churchill, “The longer you look back, the farther you can look forward”.

The “good” news is Churchill experienced failures and challenges too, which leads to my second demand of responsibility, managing failure. I recently learnt from a very close friend and team leader that “FAIL” simply means First Attempt In Learning. Not being scared of failure is one of the ways of managing failure; in fact, failures should be taken as learning opportunities and not disappointments, opportunities to evaluate and develop new ways to achieve goals. A quote from The Score Takes Care of Itself by Bill Walsh sums it all up for me. It says,

“Failure is part of success, an integral part. Everybody gets knocked down. Knowing it will happen and what you must do when it does is the first step back.”

Finally, I believe in Focus! Focus! Focus! Pressing towards the goal, working relentlessly and making up one’s mind to pay the price, no matter what it takes (legally) to succeed and nothing less. Personally, Hebrews 10:35 in the Holy Bible is and will always be of great encouragement.

“Do not, therefore, fling away your [fearless] confidence, for it has a glorious and great reward.” -Hebrews 10:35 (Amplified)

Therefore we should always have a perspective of making the best choices, decisions and conclusions as we pursue our life goals. See you at the top!