Andrew
Hunt for Greatness
Milton Kamwendo
There are decisions that you make once and then use the same decisions over years.
One such decision is to never, ever give up. Fight if you have to fight. Run if you have to run. Pray, if you have to pray but never give up and stop trying. You may have to stand alone in the rain, but never give up. Keep holding on and doing your part. Success is failure turned upside down.
Goals that matter are valuable assets. Do not give up on living, thinking and dreaming big dreams.
You need to survive adversity and stand your ground.
Keep fighting for greatness. You have staying power within you. You can survive anything and everything that comes your way.
Keep standing and fighting even when you are on your back foot.
Greatness is not a joke and it does not come on a silver platter. Let those who laugh, laugh on until they eat their own words.
Be resolute and focused. Continue on and focus your efforts on the goals that matter and the big dreams that you nurse. Do not let the passing gales break your focus and compromise your vision.
One way to be criticised a bit is to do nothing. Another way is to do much. Whatever you do, someone is bound to criticise. Do not let critics break your focus.
Let those who criticise, keep at their trade while daily you are working to be better. Use their criticism as feedback but do not give up.
Cutting remarks should never cut your focus. Do not let other people’s doubts stop you from believing in your dreams and expending your effort on what matters most.
All greatness starts with one person with a set purpose and resolute heart. You are that one person – who nurses a great dream and would not allow it to die.
Challenge yourself to live at your peak, learning daily.
Refuse to give up and keep stretching. Strange things may happen along the way, just don’t give up. Keep standing when you are hardest hit. Let pretenders who thought the journey would be easy give up. Let those who have options turn back. For you stay strong and do not give up.
Many things take longer than anticipated. Greatness takes a lot of time and effort. If life seems not to be working do not despair.
Do not give up because life seem to be meaningless.
If the night feels long, wake up and do not wait for day break. Do not linger in bed because you fear the day and its challenges. No season lasts forever and no summer or winter escapes its turn.
Do not fear life, live it.
Do not run away from life, rise to meet it. Do not fear failure, learn from every attempt you make. Keep running and don’t give up.
How you think matters. Security is an illusion. Your security is in your ability to keep fighting and following through. James F. Byrnes, a former U.S. Secretary of State of the early 1970s once said: “Too many people are thinking of security instead of opportunity; they seem more afraid of life than death.” Do not fear life, engage it.
Do not join the majority that is fleeing from the realities of life into the clutches of thinking like victims.
Meeting life boldly is challenging and hard, it requires you to invest in continual learning and growth; and it requires time. There is no short-cut to living and engaging life.
Don’t give up on YOU!
Any meaningful change can be hard, expensive and time consuming. If you do not invest in personal change you will remain in the same place, blaming the whole world for being unfair.
Not all change is progress, but without change the prospects of progress are doomed. Starting with yourself is the easiest starting point. Many people dream of changing the world and forget that the world’s door step is at their feet.
Do not give up on yourself. Fail, yes but always remember you are never a failure unless you decide to give up.
Repetition, Repetition, Repetition
To master anything repeat it until you master it. When you feel that you are now good at it, start learning it again and refining your skills and acting. Many people quit quickly without having learnt all they need to learn.
You will never reach expert proficiency with a single try. When you are failing it means you are trying. When some things do not work it means you are working. Do not just resign to “beginner’s luck.” Repetition is the key to mastery.
The path to mastery may look boring because you have to repeat, redo, relearn and keep at it day in and day out. Do not run away from anything that you have to master because you feel that you are not yet or will never get good at it.
The key to mastery is repetition. See yourself as an apprentice and learner. Be a scholar of the area of life you want to master. Study daily what you want to master in life.
Keep scratching beyond the surface. Be willing to learn. You will never achieve mastery without learning from others who know what you do not know and see what you do not see.
Mastery is achieved after years of practice and almost giving up.
Choose the arena of life that you want to master. Let it be an area where you feel you have some strength or could develop some. Then subject this arena to the 10,000 hour rule.
This rule was popularised by Malcolm Gladwell in his book, “Outliers.” The 10,000-hour rule is derived from the work of psychologist K. Anders Ericsson, who studied the way people become experts in their fields. He found that on average most became world class experts after investing an average of 10,000 of practice. This works out to a period of about 5 – 10 years of daily practice.
Do not despair if greatness does not seem to be coming early enough. Success takes time and greatness takes even longer. Be patient and keep learning, studying and refining your act. Stick to the knitting and focus your efforts.
If you commit at least one hour of focused study everyday to any field of choice, within a period of about two years a lot of people will be asking you to teach them what you know. Quit living life in the shallow end of the pool and immense yourself.
Stretch to greatness
In all forms of sport before you play or exercise you are encouraged to start by stretching. Meet life with a “stretch attitude.” Go further than you have gone in the past and keep stretching. Increase your effectiveness, elevate your goals go for something bigger and better. It is not exercise when you stay at the same level. It is not progress when you park at the past.
It is not success when you have settled in your comfort zone. Stretching allows you to be flexible enough to face any strain without breaking so easily.
I like this poem entitled “Success is Flexibility.” That was written by Brian Wright in 2013. Let it inspire you to step forth and stretch a little more, but never giving up:
“If you want to reach your goals, you’ll stretch more than a bit. You’ll have to bend and break to show your true grit.
You’ll have to reach and pull; you’ll have to jump and flip. You’ll get a little wet, when you swim out to your ship.
Success is Flexibility
When you’re ready to go west, life may send you north. When you’re ready to go straight, you may sway back and forth.
When things don’t stick to plan, you’ll have to stay the course. If you get thrown, then get back on your horse.
Some barriers must be climbed, others must be broken. You’ll sometimes even think – words that can’t be spoken.
It’s competing again, until you get that ten.
Your long term plan may change just as much as your short. Learn to pitch a tent if there’s no time for a fort.
Learn to write a letter, if you can’t tweet or text. Learn to be patient, if your turn isn’t next.
It’s working with people you may not normally meet. It’s trying a new food that your mom wants you to eat.
It’s the spur of the moment that might interrupt your day. It’s going with the flow and being happy anyway.
It’s negotiating and compromise – a win-win situation. It’s making a decision without any of the frustration.
You can be hard or soft like water in how you react to life. It’s all about the attitude in how you deal with strife.
So when you get up in the morning, and begin to start your day, don’t be surprised if things don’t go your way.
You may not get your flavour, size, or even colour, but it can be okay, if you go and pick another.”
The greatest gift you can give to life is not giving up. Life is a gift, unwrap that gift and take daily action. Do not fear living so much that you never take any step or do nothing. The greatest risk you can ever take is to risk nothing.
Do not fear success so much that you criticise those who are successful.
Do not fear failure so much that you refuse to try new things. Do not give up. Do not let your ego hold you back from taking strides, stretching and growing.
The saddest summary of life contains these descriptions: “Could have, might have, and should have, had he not given up!”
It may not be the bold steps that you take and risk failure that may haunt you, but those things that you know you could have done that you were too fearful of success to do. Take massive action, opportunity is calling out your name. Do not give up.
Committed to your greatness.
Milton Kamwendo is a leading international transformational and motivational speaker, author, and a virtual, hybrid and in-person workshop facilitator. He is a cutting-edge strategy, team-building and organisation development facilitator and consultant. His life purpose is to inspire and promote greatness. He can be reached at: [email protected] and His website is: www.miltonkamwendo.com.
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