Monday, December 6, 2010

29 Proven Ways To Overcome The Enemy Called Average: Timeless Strategies You Can Readily Apply To Get To The Top And Stay There................

The Oxford learners dictionary's definition of average as being ordinary and not special entices me most.  It is the perfect description of the graphical picture I wan t to paint before you in an attempt to make this lecture highly penetrating to your mind. Think about it.  Living an ordiary life is not what you actually want.  You want to be special and be so treated.  Evne God made you wonderfully but you have lost the essence of that unique creation.
There is an enemy working in your life and working on you.  It is called avaerage.  Average is the same as mediocrity.  It keep you on the comfort zone.  You think there is no need to improve.  Where you are is okay for you though you have been there for a long time.  Your first degree is you most cherished certificate though you have got it since the past 20 years.  The enemy called average has blindfolded you from seeing the need to get retrained and better.  As a result, the world has left you behind and you have robbed yourself of achieving your maximum potential.  Is that how you want to continue?  I don’t think so.  You need to break your fallow ground and start sowing new seeds.  John L Mason rightly said that average is bounded in the north by compromise, in the south by indecision, in the west by lack of vision and in the east by past thinking. You will agree with me that this greatest enemies of yours have been responsible for your stagnation and ordinary life over the years.  This is the time for a turning point.

25 Proven Ways To Defeat The Enemy Called Average
1.       Start Using Your Unique Abilities: There are certain things that make you unique.  God deposited them in you when you were created.  Look inwards and start using your unique abilities.  Joseph knew how to dream and he did it exceptionally well.  Initially, he knew nothing about interpretation of those dreams but later, he developed that unique ability to the point of becoming an interpreter of dreams.  His unique abilities promoted him to the throne in  a foreign land.
2.       Open Your Eyes To See Opportunities Where You Are: There are opportunities where you are.  These opportunities are avenues to add value to other people’s lives.  They are opportunities to serve.  Use what you have now right where you are.  It si a sure-fire path to the top.
3.       Build Your Gifts And Talents: God’s gifts in your life are deposits not loans.  The more you use them, the better, greater, stronger and more valuable you’ll become. Develop your gifts, put them to good use; they will provide information, insight, and revelation that cannot be received from any other source or in any other way.
4.       Aim For Excellence:  You need to do more than exist.  Try to live a profitable life. Do more than grow. Make sure you bloom.  It is very vital that you do more than spend.  Learn to invest.  Don’t just work for the sake of working, aim to excel.  Do more than helping people, make yourself available to serve them too.  Do more than reading, apply what you read.  Do more than advice, go out of your way to help.
5.       Commit To Reading Today So You Can Be A Leader Tomorrow:  The greatest miracle you can create for yourself is the miracle of self development.  Keep on learning.  It brings approval into your life.  Reading is the only sure way to develop your mind and become wiser and more valuable over  along period of time irrespective of your physical condition.  The biggest room in your house is the room for self development.  Live in it!
6.       Take Firm Decisions And Quit Doubting:  A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.  Indecision and doubt deep you moving in the middle of the road.  The middle of the road is the most dangerous place to be.  Indecision and doubts exposes you to making more mistakes and going the wrong way.  The more mistake you make, the more failure you encounter.
7.       Stay Out Of Your Own Way:  If you want to know who is responsible for most of your troubles, look out in the mirror.  You are your own greatest enemy.  If you believe in yourself, you’ll still succeed even if nobody believes in you.  But you will never succeed if you don’t believe in yourself.
8.       Don’t Be Slothful:  Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.  If you are a cleaner, be the best cleaner.  If you are a counselor, let people see you as the best.  Don’t put what you have to do yesterday away till tomorrow.  Do it now! Today is all you have.  Yesterday is gone.  Tomorrow never exist.
9.       Put Safety Last: Dare to take risk.  Sitting down is a risk.  Walking on the street is a risk.  Going to school is a risk.  Be a risk take.  It is better to be a lion for a day than to be a sheep all your life.  If you dare for nothing, you’ll get nothing. You need to be bold and courageous.  Success favors the bold.
10.   Be In Control Of How You Spend Your Time: Apply the 6 by 1 rule to be in absolute control of your time.  The rule explains that if you ant to execute any vital project, devote one hour daily to it for six consecutive days each week.  Sooner than what you think, your desire will become a reality.  The more control you have over your time, the more freedom you gain to enjoy life.
11.   Add Patience, Perseverance And Endurance To Your Life: These are vital virtues you must cultivate.  One person s’ patience, persistence and endurance will accomplish more than a thousand people with interest alone.  The story of the Chinese bamboo is instructive here.  For the first four years, they water and fertilize the plant with seemingly little or no results.  In the fifth year, water and fertilizer is again added and in five weeks, the tree grows to ninety feet in height.  What can you learn from that? Patience is the sure-fire way to maximum results.
12.   Learn To Ask The Right Questions:  A simple question like ‘what ca I do to make better use of my time, can open your eyes to opportunities you had hitherto ignored.  Asking right questions could save you.  It could promote you.  It could preserve and protect you.
13.   Build A Strong Character: Your character grows from your habits.  Choose godly and golden habits other people will respect you for.  A good name is rather to be chosen than silver and gold.  A man is truly rich by what is in his heart not by what he has in the bank.  Remember that the integrity of the righteous shall save him.
14.   Use The Weapon Of Honesty To Be Accurately Directed: Honesty is a hard-to-find virtue today.  But is  is a great weapon to be accurately motivate and directed. Any hope built on lie is always the beginning of loss.  Lie is a trap.  Don’t let yourself be entangled by it.  Speak the truth always and the truth shall set you free.
15.   Change Your Strategies, methods And Training When Necessary: Your past methods may not be useful for today.  You need to know and understand that life is always at some turning point.  Learn new skills if necessary.  Make new friends if necessary.  Change career if necessary.  Yesterday’s formula for success is often tomorrow's recipe for failure.  The road to success is always under construction .  identify the change you need to make and don’t waste time to do same.
16.   Stop Worrying About Yesterday: Your past is gone.  Choose to be forward- focused and not past-possessed.  There is no longer live in the past.  Learn to profit from past mistake and move forward.  Take immediate steps to invest in your future.
17.   Don’t Despise Small Beginning:  If your beginning is small, your end will be great indeed.  Don’t despise your place and hour.  Today is the best day you have.  Use it wisely.  Your future is already in your hands.  It is hidden in your day.  What you are doing now will mold your future.  Stop dreaming about the future.  Start working towards it.
18.   Stop Worrying, Quit Fear: Worry and doubt are the interest you pay on something you will never own.  The less you worry, the more ideas, insight and revelation you will have.  Replace fear with faith and worry with hope.  Worry leads nowhere.  Never let it direct your life.
19.   Mind What You Say: Guard your words.  They are seeds planted in people’s lives. Don’t be known as a negative person.  Say no to complain and murmur.  They make you irresponsible.  Speak right words. Your words should work for you not against you.
20.   Make Wise Choice:  Choose rather to be better than being biter.  Choose to be rather enthusiastic than lukewarm.  Choose to be committed not lazy.  Choose to be selfless than being selfish.  Choose accountability over irresponsibility.  Choose more of God than more of everything else.
21.   Don’t Give Up: God does not give up.  Never, never give up.  Hold on to your dream. Keep working on your goal.  He that began a good work in you will perfect it.  Quitters never win.  Winners never quit.  God is faithful.  He will never fail. Hold on.
22.   Write It Down. The key to successful goal is to write it down.  Crystallize your dream on paper.  Put it down on paper so as to give it a life of its own.  When you write it down, your subconscious mind will see a reason to work on it continually until it is achieved.
23.   Be Happy And Enthusiastic: Laughter is like a medicine.  Smiling is a proof that you are happy and enthusiastic and it is always a choice not a result.  No one wants to be with a man who is always sad and want to draw the sympathy of others.  Be filled with joy in your heart even when thins are not going the way you want it.
24.   Stop Giving Excuses: Some give excuses why they cannot perform a given task.  Well, that’s not the way of winners.  Those who mater in life find ways to perform given tasks even with limited resources.  That’s how great managers are made.  Stop given excuses for your failure.  Take responsibility for whatever happens to you and don’t shift blame on others.  Excuses limit your potentials.  It puts God out of the picture and put you first.  Believe that all things are possible with God.
25.   Don’t Dwell On Past Victories: Keep on looking forward and moving forward.  You should be growing from time to time.  Decide to find better opportunities to do something  new. Stagnant water ends up smelling but a flowing river keeps fresh.