What are you becoming?
“Everybody is becoming something, either consciously or unconsciously.”
Our global competitiveness as stakeholders in the future lies in our response to excellence.
Your best must regularly prevail in all that you do.
You can be good in a Nigerian system that allows for mediocrity but you can never be great in the context of the global economy and social system where excellence is the determinant of relevance.
That is why we need to ask ourselves, “What am I becoming?”
Am I becoming a man of the future or a slave in the terrain of my own future?
Am I observing the protocols of excellence and mastery?
Am I becoming more relevant to my future or less relevant?
Am I qualifying myself for greatness or mediocrity?
Am I getting stronger for exploits or getting weaker?
You need to constantly remind yourself that your future is not on the calendar; your future is in you.
READ ALSO: 3 Life Lessons from “Pursuit of Happyness” Movie by Kola Oyeneyin
When this understanding sinks into your soul, your approach to some issues of life such as your work, career, and relationship will begin to change.
So when you get your next salary, take a long, critical look at that cash, and say, ‘My future is not in you; my future is in me.’
When you see your next academic result, take a look at that result, and say, “My future is not in you; my future is in me.”
If your relationship fails, remind yourself that your future is not in that relationship; your future is in you.
You can be celebrating success when you are at the brink of failure.
So while celebrating success, also be sure that you are actually becoming a person of success.
You are everybody’s hero while hemorrhaging to death under a heavy weight of addiction, failure or perversion.
This was the reality most celebrities ignored that they sank into oblivion.
They were succeeding without becoming a person of success.
That you are successful today does not mean that you will be successful tomorrow; it only means that you must keep becoming a person of success.
Keep becoming a person of the future.
There are three classes of people:
Those that have today that will not have a future; those that do not have today that will have a future.
There are those that do not have today and will still not have a future.
Then there are those that have today, that will always have a tomorrow.
To remain relevant, keep becoming a man of the future.
If you want to become a person of the future, these are the four things that you must take to mind:
Table of Contents
Mind the image you are responding to and the voice you are listening to.
Your life is moving at the frequency of a voice.
It can be a voice within or without.
There is an instinct in each of us that presets our lives and dictates what we eventually become.
That is why childhood wisdom can be the most dangerous of all – especially in the mind of a wounded adult.
We court disaster when we carry childhood instinct and ideologies into the critical issues of life.
There is an image in each of us, that gives us a perception of who we are and this automatically shapes what we are becoming.
If that image is wrong, your life will most likely run on the track of failure and self-defeat.
That is why I advocate that women that were abused sexually or emotionally get properly healing.
If sexuality is tampered with early in life, it can greatly twist and influence a man’s perception of the whole issue of sex and life.
Mind your daily habits
You are becoming what you repeatedly do.
Your future is hiding in your daily routine.
Proactively do things that predispose you to greatness.
Cultivate the habits of champions.
Read books and surf the net for information.
Ask the right questions.
Keep yourself relevant in your area of giftedness.
If the opportunity does not meet preparation on the ground, it will be wasted.
No matter how gifted you are, you will never succeed with something you are not committed to.
Anything you do only when it is convenient for you will never give you a future.
If you want to master anything in life, never give it a complete break.
If you see anything succeeding, you are seeing the power of consistency.
Do something every day that secures your future.
Take a course.
There are many online schools that offer free online certificate and diplomas courses ranging from accounting to education, IT, sciences and even to health sciences.
Some of them are Alison, Cousera, Future learn, Edx, Saylor, YALI amongst others.
Look for an avenue to improve your digital literacy skills.
This is a digital age.
Don’t just strive for a degree; get certified as a professional in your field of expertise.
Distinguish yourself from the crowd and don’t stop bagging relevant credentials that will keep you on the edge.
I used to think a first degree and a master’s degree were all that I needed to succeed until I started getting job offers and opportunities that were asking for my certifications.
That was when the reality of today’s job market begins to dawn on me. In my own opinion, the biggest threats to our prosperity and greatness in this generation are sports and entertainment.
If you can break free from these two addictions, you are on your way to greatness.
It’s been said that men with small minds sit in front of the television to watch men with big books and great minds.
How true!
Mind your Environment
Your environment gives you your identity.
Your environment may give you an identify that is different from who you really are.
If you hang around chickens, you will think like a chicken, if you hang around eagles, you will think like an eagle.
Listen to the submission of Oliver Wendel Holmes, “From cradle, we are all tattooed with the cultural beliefs of our environment. That is why you cannot wholly educate a man out of his cultural perception.”
That is the power of your environment.
There is something called environmental conditioning; which implies systemic conformity of your way of life to a predetermined lifestyle and culture.
It means your life takes an automatic course along the track of your environment. Deliberately stay around champions.
Listen to their discussions.
Listen to their stories.
Listen to their education.
He who walks with the wise will become wise.
It’s actually time for you to leave the committee of failures, gossipers, and critics.
Join the league of gentlemen; men who are doing great exploits.
Every seed requires a climate.
Seeds do not grow anywhere.
Every seed requires a particular climate.
That explains why carrots will not grow in the South, and cocoa will not grow in the North.
It is not every environment that will support the potentials of greatness inside you.
Some environment will kill the potentials of greatness in you.
An Iroko seedling does not need to pray to be big, it will naturally be big.
But if you plant that same seed in the North, the seedling will either not grow or be a stunted tree.
This is because the North does not have the nutrients necessary to its bigness and survival.
Enduring wealth cannot be secured through bets, but through hard work and commitment.
Deliberately create an environment that enables you to dream big.
Stop listening to fools and men with small minds; their speech will erode the seeds of your future.
Mind your Personal development
Maintain a lifelong commitment to growth and learning, whether you are out of school or not.
Success in the school system should not define your efforts in other critical areas of learning.
Embrace the strength of mind and character.
Embrace mental exertion.
The brain must get into the habit of sweating through rigorous use.
Excellence is not an attitude that can be turned on or off.
Aristotle said, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is a habit, not an act.”