Increase Your Capacity to Receive

To whom much is given much is expected. He who seeks to receive must first create the capacity to receive that which he seeks. Too often than naught the tendency like I observe, reclines towards asking first to be given rather than creating the capacity to receive. The unfortunate eventuality with the first is that we get what we want but may never have/keep it or make best use of it. Eventually the much you receive is only tantamount to the capacity you have created to receive. It all revolves around the principle of first thing first. It’s like the lady who dearly sought for job, but lost it as soon as she got it. The reason is obvious, not that she asked what was too much for her to handle but that she did not first create the capacity to receive what she wanted. You risk losing what you ask when you get it, if you don’t first create the capacity to receive it. If it turns out that you are not fit for the job you have undertaken give it up and find another, better still refine yourself or adjust the job until it comes within your capability while you work on your competence, or else you will get progressively less suitable. A pilot may not be able to change the direction of the wind but he can very well adjust the positions of his ruder to maximize the dynamics of the wind for his movement. It answers much in drawing closer to the idea that opportunity abounds plenty not only to receive but to increase efficiency, to make far reaching impact because you have first created the capacity to receive. But it begins with a paradigm shift, from seeking what you can get to asking what you can give.

It’s funny sometimes how people think of giving when it’s talked about. I have never seen one give what one does not have. The golden rule of giving tells us that it’s always coming back to you what you have given. So the question you should be asking is; what have I given myself that I can give back to others? If you are sincere with this question you will learn to give more time to the improvement of yourself not for what you want to get but what you want to give. You owe a responsibility not just to yourself but to your immediate surroundings and possibly a wider community to improve yourself, because whether you know it or not another’s improvement and eventual success is tied to you living up to your responsibility improvement wise.

The world wants to meet you. If a man write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mousetrap than his neighbor said Emerson, though he build his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door. Here is a summary of all that has been said.

1.       There is plenty opportunity to increase your capacity
2.        Ask what you can give first and let every other thing find its place
3.        You can’t give what you don’t have
4.        Give yourself such that you can’t hold back from giving out that which your have
5.        The much you have is the much you have created capacity to receive
6.        There is no lack of opportunity for service, only lack of ability to serve
7.        Be a channel not a container. You put a limit to this capacity the moment you start thinking and functioning like a bucket rather than a hose.

Ask first what you can give, not what would be given you and you will open yourself to a wider horizon of opportunities.

How to Form a Doer's Character

Thoughts are powerful, they are seeds that take fruit to form words, words when properly applied prompt actions, actions solidify into habit and habit weaves character. Character said D. L. Moody is what you are in the dark. A doer is marked by his ability to focus and work out his but when he comes up to situations that he would otherwise not feel like performing. I believe it was Martin Luther King Jr. who said if you can't fly then run, if you can't run then walk, if you can't walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.” Movement creates room for progress. It’s that sort of attitude that credence to the character in a doer. Integrity is a virtue upon which character can be developed. Fundamentally, integrity is your ability (morally, intellectually, physically, etcetera) to actually match your actions with your words. A doer doesn’t derive satisfaction in seeking or making excuses not to live up to responsibility, though situations may warrant.

It’s in the character of a winner to win as it’s in the character of a child to make himself known by his acts. The Biblical saying is true, folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him. Winning is by no means automatic, it involves the process that forms the character. The best time to plant a tree was fifty years ago, the next best time is now. Now is the best time to start becoming, practicing and achieving. Success that endures is not usually expressed as a big bang if you watch closely. You never say oh I've missed my opportunity, they come in their cycles - opportunity. Opportunity always come to the one who prepares himself and shows determination.

A train of thought believes that one may never become what one aspires because of missed opportunity or because people who eventually achieve or become such are older or younger. That’s another lie people buy from polls and survey results. You may end up achieving nothing if you keep looking at people and polls. It’s not unlikely that the reason why many who would have loved to respond and be doers do nothing is not only because they consider their effort insignificant compared to the magnitude of the problem  but it’s also because they look too much at external factors and then put a big tape measure on themselves, ruling themselves down and out. You may not know what you are capable of until you set out and give it your best. We often forget to remind ourselves that what lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. Let this mind be in you which is in every doer, you can achieve anything you set your mind to achieve, going about it in the right manner.

The Misconception of High Risk High Success

Everything we want, they say lies beyond our comfort zone. As plausible as the statement may sound, it’s predisposed to happen otherwise in most practical situations. It's widely believed that a stolid life never achieves much, that those who succeed in accomplishing great things are such that do not hesitate to take risk whenever and wherever they find one. I agree with the train of thought that individuals who risk fear and comfort to achieve the best soon achieves their aim, strengthening their character by that singular quality.

1.                   High risk high success: anything worth achieving is worth the risk therein. There is a train of thought that if the risk is not consonant with respect to the measure of intended success, accomplishment or progress, it’s perhaps not worth the try. Hence the individual who intends to achieve great things must take to great risks. There are two things we must see as different entities in nature and function – risk and effort. Most people hide under the false intent that every high risk results in huge success. Defying obstacles and facing risks to achieve does not solely get a problem solved. One may not achieve a goal only by virtue of risking oneself, defying danger to pursue it without first cultivating oneself to fit the opportunity. I will prepare myself, said Lincoln and my opportunity will come. How unwise it is preparing only at the sight of opportunity. Opportunity gravitates to those who prepare and seek after it? It’s scarcity mentality to jump into any venture only because very few people would muster the courage to attempt it. My version of the law of intended complexity would agree that the individual who prepares himself making good every opportunity in a deliberate consistent manner soon begins to create opportunity for himself as well as have lines fall for him in pleasant places with little effort and sometimes without intent. Most people think greatness to be attained only by foolishly jumping into great dangers. Greatness beyond the gravity of the word is not a sudden big bang out of the blues. Like perfection, it involves handling with meticulous expertise and grand effort the smallest things which may seem insignificant at first, it is weaving with diligence and patient proficiency the tiny threads that form the large leaves which make up the conspicuous whole.

2.                   Low risk low success: It’s true of the Biblical warning that there is one who scatters, yet increases more; And there is one who withholds more than is right, But it leads to poverty. Low risk may not result to low success as it is with low effort producing less than exciting result. Anything that demands huge amount of time and effort usually produce of its kind in measure of result if the responsibility is met. On the other hand, expectations would not be excitingly high for things that require little effort, time and resources. Risk tends to be high or low in relation to how little or much we know as well as how cleverly we apply what we know.  Not all endeavors which present little risk eventually produce success in equivalent measure.  Risk can be reduced to a bare minimum without affecting the nature and measure of success.

How to Avoid Defaulting on Your Goal

In everyday conversation the term goal and the manner about achieving it brings to the fore the observed cause of its failure. Most goals are reduced to mere wishes irrespective of their significance in the stand of things. Wishes are driven by mere emotions and emotions don’t achieve goals. The term goal can comprise a broad activity the sum of which may not usually turn out to be the whole. The sheer excitement of the significance of a task may drive most people to get emotional rather than pragmatic while setting goals as well as going about achieving them, this can end up being counter productive.

Following the 3 keys to keep up with a goal here are 3 more virtues to help you build a steam head towards achieving your goal.

1.       

     Accountability - developing the ability to give account of every effort, time and resource committed to the goal. To fulfill a task or bring about the reality of an idea, having a goal alone is not enough. Every goal is a mini project in its right worthy of a plan, a time span and perhaps a budget if necessary. All these however will amount to little when there is zero accountability. If a farmer by conscious effort cultivates his land, it will yield the desires produce, if otherwise by negligence he fails to cultivate, the farm will still grow plants but this time unproductively. Accountability includes but is not limited to asking yourself the right questions, knowing what is expected of every input and seeing that expectations are met. If I’m going to be spending an hour a day to achieve this goal what percentage of the whole am I expecting to complete in that hour? Accountability puts the backbone into people who might otherwise let their responsibility slip.

2.    

            Responsibility: most people see themselves as the function of their success and not their failure. One may rightly agree that success has many fathers while failure has just one. Seeing yourself as the sole function of either the success or failure of your goal puts you in good position psychologically and motivationally to own as well as live up to the responsibility goal wise. When you own up to responsibility of eventual outcome prior to events you kill the chance of excusing yourself when the difficult aspects of activity approach.

3.    

            Commitment: in this three action plan I discussed the far reaching effects this virtue can have on achieving a goal through a set plan. Responsibility begets commitment, people comparatively feel important when they are assigned responsibility over something. They must believe in a way they are trusted to be handed the said responsibility, so a normal person as not to disappoint that trust, will commit to the responsibility. A worthy goal deserves a plan and the plan is anything to go by, it must be committed to.

The probability of achieving a goal driven by emotion alone is 5 times lesser when compared to having a plan about it. It is 7 times more certain that you will complete a goal when you affirm it by committing someone else you will do it. It becomes almost 100% certain that a goal will be completed if there exist a specific accountability appointment someone else not lacking in the necessary commitment live up to the expected responsibility the task brings.

3 Wonders about Maturity

Growth is a natural phenomenon; its effect is not usually a function of choice (at least with regards to physical growth). While one choose in moral, mental or spiritual growth it is however not the case with physical growth. As one can arrive at physical maturity without mental maturity, so can one attain both of these without moral maturity.

  

  1. Here is a child it never felt any need, whatsoever it needs it gets even without asking. At a stage of its development the significant features are not yet functional. The baby has a lot of things that are surplus to requirement. I don’t need all these (hands, legs and the rest), in my world (womb) these are not necessary. Little does she know that the world she dwells would not continue indefinitely, the hands and feet etcetera which seem surplus to requirements are a preparation for another world she must have to embrace. Change will surely come for you little baby and the effect will follow the cause, you will enter a new world, you will grow and all the features which seem out of place in your previous world will find their place of use here.

  2. Here is a flamboyant butterfly, few days back it was just another ugly meandering smelly creature causing more of havoc than good to the green. Such a destructive creature the caterpillar, of such that its destructive ability was mentioned in the scriptures. But today you grace each plant with your wonderful kisses, no more are you havoc to budding helpless vegetation. Your kisses are magical both to budding plants and full grown trees. What a transformation, who taught you these things little sunshine? Your colors grace sunrise and at sunset you look just beautiful in nature. Would you have believed if I told you (caterpillar) that you will be this tender and beautiful creature – butterfly?

   

 3. Here is the kite gliding so high in the sky. It looks with a swelling satisfaction upon the earth from the skies. Everyone admires its dynamism in flight as the little boy carefully and cautiously pull its string, steering the kite away from danger. Release me declares the kite, I want to be free. I want to glide with the wind, not be controlled by some string. As its craving increased, snap went the string and zoom the kite with the wind up into the skies. Oh this is freedom declares the kite, I now control my glide. Ok here comes the current, time to glide even higher and faster. An unpleasant surprise awaits the renegade kite; it’s swept mercilessly by the same usual winds it would easily glide in, into the waiting razor sharp blades of the green.

Letter from Antiquity

Here is a letter from a pietist to his son

…in order to serve God faithfully at all times, remember that wherever you are God is with you, seeing and hearing everything you think, say or do. This thought will often keep you from doing evil and spur you on to do good; it will even be the reason for all the good you do…

Be diligent in your work, pay attention to everything and remember always that the profession you are learning now will not only be the means of earning a livelihood for the rest of your life but also that of serving God and your fellow man. Remember also that to a large extent, it depends on you whether you will be a useless person or whether you will amount to something in the world.

Therefore you must pray to God with all your heart for His Holy Spirit, and also expend all possible effort and care during your years of apprenticeship.

Courtesy World History: The Human Odyssey

                                                                                                                      

Before You Lift Your Life

If one must lift one’s life by any mean’s, one must then first lift one’s thought and then one’s hope. There is strength to be gained from this knowledge. Your success, development, failure, misfortune, weakness and strength are yours and non other’s. If you must improve the statusquo, you must take personal responsibility of your lot and development.

Success they say has many fathers but failure only one. Most people would readily pick a bias from that idea to support their laziness and deviate responsibility. There is sense in knowing how much of your success depends on you and how much of your progress can be contributed from external sources. This I think will put you in good position to make decisions and reach out to your goal rather than wait for external prompts that may not happen. If you don’t know where you are going or what you want you may not recognize when you get there or achieve it, that’s a fact.

No one is an island anywhere not in this 21^st century. That you can walk alone doesn’t mean you are living alone, you have seven billion neighbors – knew that? One must get to that stage in life where to be efficient they must not only co-operate but synergize, until that stage each person must take personal responsibility of their effectiveness and success and become the sole initiator triggering the progress of his own accomplishment. None other will do that for him. If you must get help, you must show the will and competence to receive it first. A strong cannot help the weaker unless that weaker is willing to be helped declared Allen. The direction of one’s life will most definitely follow the same hue as set by one’s thought, whether good or vice. They speak loudest – our thoughts.The thought you hold is hourly transforming you into that particular individual. Preserve a right mental attitude.