It is always challenging to measure success in a certain way. Is success achieving some figures a business has targeted to achieve? If so, what if the proposed performance target did not have some error in assumption nor did it take into account other contributing factors? At an individual level success can mean something for someone, while it may make a different sense for others. There is no one perfect way of defining success unless we want to become very objective when the subject itself is too subjective.
For me, success is an ongoing process that needs to be celebrated every step of the way. Each progress we make in life can add values to the outcome we would like to come to us in due course. This notion may work equally whether you are a student, a teacher, a professor, a civil servant, on private business, or in any other endeavors in life.
Aside from the arguments on the terminology of success, let us focus on what an individual success accompanies-the ideals that have shaped me in the past decade and will continue to inspire me in the next. The below points are important elements most of us may find to pass by when we start the road to success. Please do not be surprised if one of these points does not fall into your list-they are just my personal perspectives that I believe are worth sharing with as we commence the new decade 2020. They are of course vital components of who we are as humans as we thrive in life.
1. Pray
A moment of silence! At some stage in life, we need to be alone, right? In any religion, there is a moment of silence whose eloquence is felt in the whispers within our soul-the whispers of wanting our endless dreams to come true. We may want to achieve something quickly, urging to fix all the unpleasant situations we are going through, though we would like to be grateful to God for allowing us still to breathe. We may be making these noises for others, for our loved ones-good on us to be so kind as to take a moment for others! Prayer is something worth a practice as we push through life endeavors, as part of our quest to uncover success.
2. Minimize negative self-talk
Once we are ready to start the journey to success, one of those days we may find something is not going quite right. It does not mean it may continue to be so-so we should not feel pressured to criticize ourselves as the sole troublemakers. One or more factors may contribute to what is happening. One way of tackling a negative attitude towards ourselves is accepting things as they are and getting ready to challenge them-not personalizing the situations. Just replace it with positive self-talk, “it is what it is, don’t worry, I can make it better with a new outlook”. We may need to review our current practices to better off, or get some advice from someone who is already more successful in what we are trying to achieve.
3. Build Skills
Looking back on the first time we walked to school, years ago? Just going? About to graduate? Or just working? It does not matter what stage we are at-we need to be constantly on the lookout for building the skills and the competence in our area of expertise that will enable us to be more conversant. We may have earned one or more qualifications; maybe doing the same thing again and over again. Are we aspirant to contribute more to the world?
It does not have to be the world as it literally denotes-the village in which we can benefit from our success, to start with. A combination of reading, writing, and practice in actual situations can profoundly help to develop the skills way more than we expect. Some other way of building skills is conversing with likeminded and motivating individuals around us, or further afield. Thanks to the options from the phone to an email to social media, we can reach out to our professional mates to hear their genuine feedback.
4. Socialize
It is indeed my personal reflection that can’t be overlooked. We are not living in a fictional world where imaginary characters take us on a tour of their journeys in life, at the end of which, we struggle to remember even their names. Staying indoors is safe but NOT always-just do not overdo outdoors as we may hardly have any time left to refresh our thoughts and to build up the skills that need to be upskilled. Work and life balance come to play here. We work to live-most of us have been preparing to live over the last few decades, hoping to live more decades, God willing! I am committed to live NOW, hope you will join me!
5. Be Kind
Generosity does not always have to be associated with donating money to the needy. We all have something to be kind with. Some of us may have time which means a lot to a friend or a relative or anyone who needs our presence around them. We can be kind with our words and with someone who actually needs just kind words. We do not need to be born kind-just making sense of what the Holy Scripture tells us, Proverbs 11:17, “Your own soul is nourished when you are kind, but you destroy yourself when you are cruel.”
The Ethiopian Herald January 10, 2020
BY PETROS FANTAYE
