Friday, 13 January 2017

The secret to the realization of your full potential.


An introduction to significant goal setting steps and the importance of setting goals within the right time-frame. 


Proverbs 19:21 “Many are the plans in a person's heart, but it is the LORD's purpose that prevails”. 

Proverbs 3: 5 -6 “Trust in the Lord with all your heat and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight".


People in the world are used to the norms of society that when another becomes innovative they are labelled as crazy or strange.  This has made people live below their potential, this should not always be the case. It is highly evident from people like Bill gates and Kenneth Makate that we can change from being normal into being extraordinary. This is possible by choosing the road less travelled.

Going with the flow is one of the major reasons why we fail at accomplishing New Year's resolutions and other goals we have set. By this I mean when we make plans for the New Year between January and December we are setting ourselves for failure. January to December is a calendar year for general people not necessarily your year. This means in order to achieve your goals or New Year's resolutions your must have your own year. That is, a year that is going to match your life style as well as your endeavors. Your year does not need to be twelve months, it can be six months. Government has its own financial year so as businesses this helps the latter and the former to function effectively and efficiently.




These are significant goal setting steps one needs to follow:

·         Know what you want to achieve: do not be hard on yourself and do not set goals that are not achievable. Knowing what you want to achieve keeps you focused. So, you must write down you goals so that you can keep tracking your progress on a daily or months basis.

·         Set goals within a reasonable time frame: part of the reason we find it hard to achieve our goals is the fact that we set is because we focus too much on long term goals. While we doing that, we forget that our short and medium term goals should be leading us to realize our long term goals.

·         Downsize and scale-down: we should drop some things. Dropping some things needs us to reflect on things we do and have a deep understanding of our abilities and capabilities- know yourself! Be fair to yourself!

·         Be disciplined: we must stick to our plans and not be easily swayed. Disciple determines destiny. Therefore, we must be willing to pay the price in order to be successful. Mhlungu (2016) puts the premise of this point eloquently when he says it is only in the dictionary where the word success comes before work. 

·         Mind your relationships: friends who are making you to get derailed must be dropped.  Your life is more important. You must go with people who are going to uplift you in what you want to achieve.

·         Discover yourself: many of us just do things out of socialization. This point is critical because once you do something that you were created to do you will not struggle. This will be the case because you will be doing something you were wired to do. About 80% of people are doing things because they want to put bread on the table, but not necessarily what they were created to do. To be someone in life you need to undergo three births; 1- Birth to the world, 2 – Conviction birth (being born again) and 3 – giving birth to ourselves (Mhlungu, 2015). In light of the preceding statement, one can argue that our parents and God (if you are born again) have played their parts. We have not played our part by giving birth to ourselves.

·         Allocate time accordingly:  this can be achieved by ensuring that the tasks that demand your attention the most get big chunks of your time. In addition we must do things that add value to our lives. Executing what is necessary to do instead of what is nice to do will save us a lot of time. Hopefully, I am not misunderstood on this point. As humans being we must have time to recreate and refresh. We must have time with our families but again we must know our priorities. Have time with your family because they will support you one day when you happen to fall on whatever venture you are exploring. Life at times is hard no matter how faithful you try to be, life is just life, it can turn against you. 

Now the big question is, when it is the right time to set my goals for the New Year. The advantage of having your year is the fact that it will help you to take the road less traveled and accommodate your uniqueness. The good news is that the fact that only people who do things 'strange' (like dream killers put it) ever accomplish their goals. "Everyone is best at his or her uniqueness" (Mhlungu, 2016). The December to January period is a time where one should be reflecting on his or her goals. The gist of this section is that our goals should be tailored to suit our lives.

Proverbs 19:21 “Many are the plans in a person's heart, but it is the LORD's purpose that prevails”. God is saying while we may have a number of endeavors we want to pursue we must understand that His will prevail. This means for us to ensure that we prosper in all we do, we must first ask Him to reveal the treasure within us. From this verse one can say its message is that we must involve God right from the beginning pertaining achieving our goals.

Proverbs 3: 5 -6 “Trust in the Lord with all your heat and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight". The world is filled with people who are Mr and Mrs I-KNOW-IT-ALL that is why we have many individuals who have not found themselves. In light of these verses in order for us to be successful we must have faith in the Lord ‘for without faith is impossible to please God’. In addition, in all our ways we must acknowledge that He in control of everything – to make our goals a reality we are expected to allow Him to be the Captain of the Ship while we are passengers. The tragedy is that many of us have taken the position of being Captains. So, when the storms come our incompetency as captains is exposed!

Success is not about money nor is it about education. Instead, success is mostly about finding yourself. Once you are on the road to your destiny that is success on its own. The latter is true because you are doing what you were created to do. It is unfortunate that a number of us are lost and are just wasting time– what a tragedy! I do not care how much money or education you have - if have not found yourself you have not started living.

Remain blessed and ensure that you are in good terms with the Trinity of God and the Bible, our constitution as the Kingdom of God citizens.
Source of information:

Mhlungu, S.S.S (2015, December 27). When is the best time to set your goals. [Audio podcast].Retrieved from http://www.safm.co.za/sabc/home/safm/multimedia/details?id =ef30e9d2-5a3f-473a-b7df-b67d8c972e64&title=Podcasts