FOCUS: Goals

The race in this New Year is no longer new. We are already enjoying God’s blessings for the year. And blessed are we among all creations!

In the previous article (check https://theasegunproject.blogspot.com/2019/01/focus-past-present-and-future.html) I illustrated the importance to focus on what is right before us instead of concentrating on the past that is gone, or the future we don’t know yet. Focus is key. “Where your focus lies” is as important as “what your decisions are”.

Now, let’s talk about our 2019 Goals. I don’t know what goals you’ve set for yourself for this year, but I make bold to tell you that achieving your goals is YOUR responsibility (all things being equal). New Year resolutions have been made; I honestly hope that the same resolutions won’t be “remade” next year. Honestly.

Staying focused on your 2018 goals was hard. In the beginning, you were certainly motivated. But your motivation waned over time. You got caught up, stuck, frustrated, overloaded, overworked, distracted, and you simply just deviated off track. Clearly, it was hard to stay focused when you have so much going on. Right?

Here’s my good news for you: FOCUS on your 2019 goals is POSSIBLE! Just as my friend, Mike Amure, charged me on three different occasions towards the end of last year… I know anything is possible. We are not of them who agonize about the past; we organize for the present. We won’t beat ourselves up for our failures or sit comfortably in our past successes. We will rather pay attention to what’s present right before us and conquer the territories before us.

Friends, Write Down Your Goals. If you haven’t written out your goals, then you’re missing the most important part of effective goal setting. When you don’t write your goals, they stay in the abstract. They’re less real, even if you think they’re as real as they can be. You have to write them down and get very specific about them. 

Friends, Remove Distractions. What were those things that took your attention off your goals last year? Identify them and avoid them as much as you can, even if it means seeking help from “friends”. Remember, if you want to go FAST, you go alone… but if you want FAR, you go with people.

Friends, Become an Effective Manager of your Time. It’s virtually impossible to stay focused on your goals if you can’t manage your time. Become an effective time manager and you’ll see yourself progressing rather than falling behind. Pick a time management system that works and work it. MANAGE “important and urgent” tasks (short-term crises and problems), FOCUS on “important but not urgent” tasks (long-term strategic goals), AVOID “urgent but not important” tasks (distractions and interruptions), and LIMIT “not important and not urgent” tasks (time-wasting activities).

Friends, Strategize. To stay focused on your goals, you need a plan. A plan is what helps move us from the status quo, to achieving our goals over time. Without a plan, we’re like a fish out of water, caught floundering. Usually, we end up failing without a plan. So, if you’re serious about your goals, and you want to stay hyper-focused on achieving them, create a plan.

Friends, Be Disciplined. When Jim Rohn said that “discipline is the bridge between your goals and accomplishment”, he zeroed in on something so important that has the power to shift and alter the state and quality of all our lives. It’s not just the matter of being disciplined for a short period. You have to wield that discipline for long periods if you want to accomplish big goals.

FOCUS, friends. F. O. C. U. S.! 

Thanks for reading!

FOCUS: Past, Present, and Future

It’s a New Year! To say “we are blessed” is an understatement. I am pleased to usher you all into this New Year!

We are too concerned with what was, and what will be… Yesterday is history, Tomorrow’s a mystery, but today is a gift, that is why it is called the present. Focusing on the future will make us anxious. Dwelling in the past, we are bound to fall down. We will feel nostalgic and will lose the precious moments from present, hence, the only reality is present and our focus should be to make it beautiful. Amen?

Lao Tzu, the great Chinese Philosopher, made a profound statement – “If you are depressed you are living in the past. If you are anxious you are living in the future. If you are at peace you are living in the present”. The past is exactly that, it has passed. However, if we focus on the future, it will create stress in our lives.

I am very sure that some questions are being raised in your mind. Am I to just “forget” the past as if nothing happened? Hmmmmmn… How can I even “forget” what happened in 2018 so quickly? Smiles… And how will you tell me not to think about the future?

Friend, I never hinted all these. So, those questions are just distractions and invalid. Why? The word here is FOCUS and not “look” or “remember”. Let’s move on!

Your Life is likened unto a car with a windscreen and rear view mirrors. The rear mirrors help you to view what is behind (past) and the windscreen help you to see what is here (present) and what is ahead (future). So, would you focus your attention on the rear mirror or on the windscreen? Hmmmmmn!

Friend, would you keep basking in the euphoria of your past journeys and take your focus on what’s in front of you? 2018 has either obeyed or disobeyed. We cannot change what happened. But 2019 is here. Let’s rewrite our story!

Have you ever considered the reality that the windscreen of your car (life) is at least 20 times bigger than the rear mirror? The rear mirror is very small, and typically you should spend less than 5% of your driving time looking behind you. However, your windscreen is huge, because you must have clarity and visibility in front of you to be able to drive your car and arrive at your destination safely.

The number one rule of driving is to always keep your eyes on the road, and a clear windscreen is extremely important.

2018 is gone. The past years are gone. We cannot and should not dwell on those things that happened to us, whether good or bad, because that will deprive us the opportunity to deal with the present. Drivers who look back through their rear mirror instead of focusing on what’s ahead of them will continue to run off the road, hit the potholes and crash into adversity.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not undermining what horrible things might have occurred in your life, but I refuse to allow you to believe that those things make up who you are as a person.

So… What do you do with your past? Try to “remember” –not focus on– what has passed. And try to learn from it. Apply your learning to the benefit of yourself and others, when you can. If you can’t, you can’t. Don’t worry about it. Life continues, no matter what. Life is not fair or unfair, cruel or kind. Simple. Not simple? Okay.

The past is good for only two things: Entertainment and Instruction. All other uses (as well as too long a time spent in entertainment) are corrosive to the human soul. One needs to CONSIDER the future... it’s hard to get where you're going, if you don't know where you want to go. But one must learn to appreciate the dynamic nature of life. What do I mean? No matter how hard you look, eventually the future will throw you… Which brings us to the only place in which you can live: NOW – the present!

Friend, can we break it down as: 80% in the present, 15% the future and 5% in the past? We know that the past is unreliable, so focusing too much on it can lead to trouble. The future will always be there, so it is not necessary to put all of one’s focus on it. The present and result of present actions will produce the future that one is seeking. Hence, time thinking about the future needs to be thinking about whether present actions are helping bring about the future of your choice.

Thanks for reading!

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WHY DO PEOPLE MISUNDERSTAND THE BIBLE?

In Mark 7:14 Jesus said, “Hear Me, everyone, and understand.” Yet today people will dismiss plain Bible teaching about moral issues (such as homosexuality, divorce, or abortion) or about salvation from sin or the church because they say the teaching is too confusing or difficult to understand. Why don’t people understand? It is not because the Bible is so unclear. Jesus expected people to understand His teaching, and Paul said: “…do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is” (Ephesians 5:17; see also 2 Timothy 3:16,17). But some don’t understand because they do not study diligently. “You are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures…” (Matthew 22:29). Others misunderstand because they accept teachings of men who disagree with the Scriptures. “And in vain they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men” (Matthew 15:9). Such teachings often come from false teachers dressed in sheep’s clothing who are really ravenous wolves (Matthew 7:13,14). But often people do not understand the Bible simply because they do not like what it says. “Their ears are hard of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, lest they should understand with their heart and turn, so that I should heal them” (Matthew 13:15). When the Bible does not say what some folks want to hear, they just conclude it is all too confusing and you cannot really understand it anyway! People who want to please God must “search the Scriptures daily” with an open mind, like the honest Bereans in Acts 17:11. To please God, we must know the truth, and that truth is found in God’s word.

OF WALKING AND DREAMS

My love for walks started with my father. When we still had money, I loved riding with him to buy petrol for the generator. We would sit there, not speaking, listening to all my favorite people on the radio. At the filling station, he would give me the money and ask me to get the keg out to be filled- I liked the sense of responsibility. But the walks. I loved them more. The walks started when the money went. We would take the short walk out of our small estate to the Malaam to buy candles because petrol became too expensive. But because there was no radio noise to fill the quiet, we spoke instead. We had long conversations of what I wanted to be; what he wanted to accomplish and what he wanted for us- each child. We would walk so slowly, walking past the bigger houses that were lit up with a thousand lights because they had money to buy petrol for their generators. Past the smaller houses like ours, some bright, some dark. Walked slowly as fast cars zoomed past and other pedestrians briskly overtook us. Till we stopped in front of our faded red gate. Father always looked a bit sad when we got back home. I didn’t figure out why until recently. I think Father got sad when we got back because it was a rude jolt back to reality. See, Father was a dreamer, he had these big aspirations for himself and the family; he had all these plans laid out and he spoke about them with such zeal, each time. But getting home was like a douse of cold water at three in the morning because the dreams were just that- dreams. Nothing was happening. His projects were still failing. We were still being called out at school because the fees hadn’t been paid. We were still eating meat only at night. We were still buying candles. So, whenever we stopped at that faded red gate, those palaces we had built with our words quickly faded into nothingness. But Father was such a sport; he’d bound into the house with jokes for mother and sweets for the little ones. We found other reasons to go on walks. Just him and I. And then, we stopped walking for reasons at all. We just did. I paint now. I was a sculptor a few months back. I was writing for a magazine last year and I was a freelance photographer before that. A boyfriend once told me I was a lot more like my father than I thought. Picking a project and then abandoning it in pursuit of another dream. We fought that day. Not because he was wrong, not because I did not agree with him; but because it had never been put to me that way. I fought against it. So cold but so true. Abandoning one to chase another. My younger siblings are grown now, working in banks and owning schools while I paint and write and play my guitar and take long walks. But I find that my walks do not end when I arrive at my tiny, cluttered studio apartment; it doesn’t end when I see my battered wooden door, I go on dreaming. I have translated it to what I call my art. I sing my dreams, I write them, I draw them. My life feels like a leisurely haze of pastel colors. Surely, this isn’t a bad place to be. None of Father’s dreams came true. I should probably say instead, none of Father’s dreams have come true because he hasn’t stopped dreaming. I visit him four times a month, every Sunday. My parents live now in the cute flat my sister bought them after her last promotion. We walk, even slower now that he’s supporting himself with a stick. We walk, past the houses that are all lit, because it is an upscale area. We walk as the faster cars cruise past. We walk on the lush lawns and neat pavements. We walk. We walk and dream.

THE UNREAD WILL

The Unread Will The richest man that ever lived wrote a will and instructed his lawyers to read the will on the television, radio, social networks, streets, public buses, cemetery, restaurants etc all over the world. The man further instructed his lawyers to codify the entire will in a single document so that everyone could have access to the will. Finally, the man declared that only those who re…ad the will and claim the assets in it should be given his property which were worth trillions of dollars. The lawyers did exactly as they were commanded. They went everywhere telling the people of every nation and tribe about the man’s will. But the people found the criteria to claim the will just too good to be true. The will was so strange to the hearing of the people that they beat up the lawyers in some places while in other places they were stoned and considered bizarre and insane. On a certain occasion, I met the lawyers and I was given a free copy of the will but I never read it. As I write, I have the will in my cupboard dusty and on my phone but I hardly read it let alone claim it. The unread will is the word of God. The bible is the most widely distributed book in the whole word but ironically many persons don’t read it. And the few who read it never bother to claim their inheritance in God. They bible is the only medicine that can cure all manner of illnesses and diseases only if we would read and claim our inheritance in it. The book of Joshua 1:8 reads “This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.” Dear father, help me and my friends to read your will so that we can claim our inheritance in you. Amen. Image