INTENTIONAL SUCCESS VOL. 12 PART 1

PROBLEMS, OBSTACLES AND CHALLENGES

(You are Your Greatest Obstacle!  You are Road Block NUMBER 1!)

Weekly Motivation for 7^thDecember – 11^thDecember2015 by Ndimofor Aretas

Good Morning my Geniuses with Capital G!;

            Wow!  December is on and going... the last month of the year 2015 will soon be over and so too will the first term of the 2015/2016 Academic year!

I know some students tried to “get out of their shells” and “let their lights shine” and I know that it has not been an easy decision to make or an easy step to take. 

I also know that a majority of students HAVE NOT TRIED AT ALL!.

In fact for those students who tried to do something new, it was all

A BIG CHALLENGE! And also A BIG BOLD STEP!

How many times do you think that people try to achieve their new goals before they give up?

The average is LESS THAN ONE TIME!

Most people GIVE UP BEFORE they even MAKE THE FIRST TRY!. 

And the reason they give up is because of all of the obstacles, difficulties, problems and roadblocks that immediately appear as soon as you decide to do something that you have never done before.

            The fact about any achievement in life is that; “the size of the achievement is directly proportional to the size of the challenges and obstacles which you overcome”

  In other words;

“THE GREATER OR BIGGER THE CHALLENGE, THE GREATER THE ACHIEVEMENT” 

            In a song titled “You can get it if you really want”, Jimmy Cliff says;

“Rome was not built in a day, opposition will come your way,

but the harder the battle, the sweeter the victory”

            Therefore, if you wish to achieve anything in life, you must overcome a certain level of obstacles and challenges.  The sizes of such challenges simply indicate the size of the outcomes!

At this point, I am going to introduce you to

“THE THEORY OF CONSTRAINTS.”

This theory was described by Elihu Goldratt in his book The Goal.  It says that, between you and anything you want to accomplish, there is a constraint, or limiting factor, that determines how fast you accomplish it.

Imagine that you have to transfer a liquid (like palm oil or palm wine or water) between two containers (say from A, which is full into B, which is empty) using a funnel.  Although the head of the funnel is big, it narrows down at the neck.  This neck is a constraint which will determine how fast you can transfer your liquid from container A into container B. 

In the same way, there is a funnel neck between you and anything you plan to achieve and your job is to identify that neck and eliminate it so that there is a smooth flow, just like pouring a full bucket of water into a separate empty bucket!

THE BAD NEWS is that there will always be funnel necks between you and your achievement.

THE GOOD NEWS is that 80% of these necks are within you and only 20% are from external sources like people and conditions!

Therefore YOU are responsible for 80% of your failure.  YOU ARE ROAD BLOCK 1!

To put it another way, it is YOU personally who is usually the MAJOR ROADBLOCK that is setting the speed at which you achieve any goal that you set for yourself!

I can hear your thoughts.... you are asking... “HOW AND WHY IS IT MY FAULT?”.

Here is HOW: The primary obstacles between you and your goals are usually MENTAL. They are Psychological and Emotional in character. They are Within Yourself rather than Within The Situation around you.  And it is with these Mental Obstacles that you must begin if you want to achieve everything that is possible for you.

Ask for WHY:  The reason is because most of the time YOU BELIEVE those Mental Obstacles, thereby allowing them to grow in your mind and then stop you from taking any actions towards your objectives.

For example;  Have you ever missed a prize for a question you knew the answer to?  What stopped you from giving your answer in the first place?  How often do you use the phrase;

“HAD I KNOWN!  I WOULD HAVE TRIED!”

 I have! Many times! But that was in the past!  I remember how I used to feel when a question that I knew the answer to was asked;

First, my rate of heartbeat will speed up!

And then a serious debate will start inside me (between my negative and positive thoughts).  The negative thoughts will say: Don’t put up your hand! 

And then continue by asking questions like; Are you sure your answer is the right one?  And then give me a million and one reasons why I shouldn’t try, such as; your friends will laugh at you, the teacher will either insult or punish you...etc

All these negative thoughts will scare me and I won’t even give attention to the positive thoughts or attempt, and finally I felt even worse when someone else claimed the prize!  The sad thing is that it was only at that point that I will hear the positive thoughts saying that; I told you to try, but you didn’t listen!

 Then the famous HAD I KNOWN creeps in and completes the “Pity Party!”.

I also clearly remembered how I felt when I got the prizes or applauds to those that I attempted.  The feelings made me want to fly!  And so I am learning how to pay more attention to my positive thoughts in such situations.  I do that by reversing the negative questions and giving myself positive answers as follows;

Negative questions and thoughts	Positive reversal
What if you are wrong?	What if I am right?
What if your friends laugh and mock at you?	What if they applaud and respect me?
What if you are wrong and the teacher punishes you?	What if you are right and the teacher rewards you?
What if you are wrong and your friends reject you?	What if I’m right and they make me their leader?

Finally when I attempt and succeed, which I do most of the time, I feel more confident and this confidence grows by the day in everything that I attempt.  It is only after attempting that I realise that my negative thoughts make the challenge to be by far more difficult than it actually is.  So I pay little or no attention to them and I go ahead and make my attempt!

Even if I fail, I simply see it as an opportunity to intelligently start over again until I do succeed!

One of the most important phrases I have come to learn how to quickly remember is this verse from the Bible book of

Philippians 4:13, which says; “I can do all things through Christ who strengths me”.

In my next write up, I will explain how you can turn your challenges into opportunities.

In the mean time, I will like you to feed your mind with possibility thoughts that can help to remove YOU out of YOUR way.  If you have been following up my last 11 write – ups, then you already know how to PLANT AND NOURISH positive thoughts in your mind.  If not, then I encourage you to do all you can to read them!

            The first thought I will like you to repeat as often as possible in the face of any challenge is that;

I CAN DO ALL THINGS THROUGH CHRIST WHO STRENGTHENS ME!

IN JESUS’ NAME,

AMEN.

By Ndimofor Aretas

Monday, 07/12/2015

(For the week of 7^thNovember – 11^thDecember 2015)

Sources of some of the points:

Goals! How to Get Everything You Want — Faster Than You Ever Thought Possible by Brian Tracy