Five(5) Tips On How To Nurture Your Dreams

A. P. J. Abdul Kalam — 'Dream is not that which you see while sleeping it is something that does not let you sleep.'

However if we do not nurture them, they will die or fade into a figment in our imagination.

Our dreams are meant to be a driving force in our inside, driving us to arriving there in real life; but when this driving force parks up, stagnation becomes reality.

Success requires Consistency as a key ingredient. Consistency would be in place only when our dreams are fresh, cherished and strong in our minds.

1. Identify and avoid dream killers.

Know and refrain as much as possible from those around you that seems to one way or the other always suffocate your aspirations, as seen either by their comments or disposition.

They are no good to your dreams. Intelligently keep them away from your dreams, aspirations and plan if you cannot necessarily avoid them.

2. Accommodate opportunities that will take you closer into attaining your dreams.

Be objectively open to opportunities that present potential of drawing you closer to your dreams.

Do not shy away from them; weigh them, and if they are appropriate, in line and crucial, accepts them.

This opportunities will keep you motivated and serve as a source of great encouragement.

3. See setbacks, as unfortunate as they may seem, as a detour that will ultimately culminate into a vital path of the journey.

Setbacks may delay you, but they will always make you stronger and razor sharper.

You will always never see any good in setbacks at first, but I can assure you that there is a good in it; you will eventually recognize it in the long run.

4. Know the difference between Passion and Interest, and make your dreams your passion.

Five(5) Simple Reasons Why People Fail

The failures we encounter can be traced to five(5) simple root causes, but let me say a few things things first.

The fear of failing is rearly the reason for failing as mostly perceived.

This is true because for the most part we don't really fear failing, but what we do fear is whether or we have it in us to rise from a terrible fall.

We fear succeeding and not having what it takes to sustain it.

It is not the fear of failing that keeps us from trying, it is the fear of "am I good enough or deserving of this blessing or success."

The fear of failing is not the primary issue, it could be the fear of discovering or manifesting  a part of us we never knew existed before, on the road to success.

I am emphasizing on fear because for me, it is not among the five(5) primary reason people fail.

So, here are five(5) simple reasons people fail. People,

1. Underestimate their Strengths.

We fail because we are more conscious and confident about our weaknesses than our strengths. We know pound for pound all our area of weaknesses and how bad it looks, but we know or take to account little or nothing our strengths.

We will seldom succeed if we never come to Identify, Cultivate and Nurture on our strengths rather than on our weaknesses.

2. Underestimate the fruits of Hard Work and Diligence.

Hard work pays. Diligence elevates. Down playing on the importance of these, in building our core values could prove fatal to our success in life.

RULE OVER YOUR EMOTIONS||LEAD!

Permit me to tell you why emotions are such bad leaders but great followers.

Have you notice how things whined up badly when done out of some feeling or emotion(or spur of the moment of some sort), especially when done through any minimal contemplation of any kind?

Haven't you regretted afterwords, making an important life decision based on a whim? It is because emotions are such bad leaders.

Our emotions are not smart. Someone said "emotions are without brains". You need to give your emotions the passenger's seat not the driver's, or you will pay for it later.

Truly, our emotions are very very important, and we can accomplish much with them, only when wisdom is applied with it - this is where taking the lead comes in.

Emotions are like YO-YO's, they are these now and that immediately after, ever changing and for the majority of the time should not to be trusted.

For example, if you really want to get a job done, you will have to really dig your heels in and stick with it regardless off how you feel or don't feel. And when you stick with it long enough even though you started not feeling like doing any of it, you will realize that you emotions will catch up and become excited eventually; see, good followers.

HOW TO MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR SEASON

Life is a collection of times and seasons. One will never catch a break from it - even that is time. As one is exiting from one season, he is entering into another;it is a continuous cycle. Think about it.

Crops for example have their different seasons with which they flourish. While some do well in this others don't and would do well at another.

Time makes up for seasons as seasons makes up life. How well you maximize time culminates into your seasons and consequently your life.

Time should be invested not spent. Why not pay now and play later rather than the contrary. The irony here is that in both ways there is a "paying" - you determine whether it is now or later.

The success of a season should not be measured by the level of productivity. You might be in a season  where everything is working well and as planned, enjoy it. If you are at a season things seems not to be going with the flow you envisaged, don't get discouraged, resist the temptation to quit, rather make the most of what you have.

Like trees, you may thrive in some seasons and kind off go through the motions in others, but remember to make the must out of both, trees do.

Stay True to Your Path

Do you want to be a total master at what you are doing or be at the very echelon? Get in to you path and stay there.

One of the greatest temptation you will ever face and continue to face as a person, is the temptation of doing whatever is working for the next person or happens to be in trend.

This is a true temptation because, you may be going through your own process and become weary of it by the reason of it's seemingly slow pace as compared with the pace of the other person.

It will be good to note at this point that that person you are admiring his prosperity may have gone through his own process behind the blinds and is now reaping the fruit. So you see him now and starts dreaming of becoming as successful, not considering the fact that he stood in his path.

Another valid temptation is the temptation of trying to cut corners to getting faster to your envisioned destination.

Put in the effort now, do what you've got to do now, enjoy the process, stay in the path, don't try to rush things, rather allow things to flow naturally. In doing this you will grow as your enterprise in growing.

If you cut corners, you enterprise might grow, but you won't.

Here is wisdom,

Learning How to Leverage on Past Mistakes

Too much have been said about minimizing risk and avoiding mistakes so much so that it has become almost frightening to taking decisions about little issues.

In as much as learning how to minimize risk at any endeavor is imperative, becoming fearful about risks taking altogether will cause you more harm than the latter.

I think there is need to master the art of leveraging on our past mistakes and not only on how to minimize risks. I think this is a superior wisdom.

Anybody can minimize risk just by not taking any, which is very sad, but turning mistakes into milestones requires great understanding, and not everybody have that.

But you see no one is born with great understanding, it is learned by instruction, knowledge and counsel, which is what I am offering you.

It is foolish for one to be caught on the same net twice. Being taken by the same mistakes is never a good thing. For anything mistakes are to be avoided but when they come, which they will, you should learn how to receive instruction from it.

The only way for you to leverage from a bad situation is to learn from it. It is to receive instruction from it not just experience.

Here are some nuggets to consider:

• Experience gained from past mistakes may not necessarily stop you from making them again, but getting understanding by receiving instruction from the mistake will always keep you from making same mistakes.

• Learn not to focus on the things lost by the mistake but on the things you could still salvage from all of it, however how damaging the mistake may be. However severe the mistake you are making or have made may seem, there is still something there you could save, you just have to consider it deeply.

• You are never the real victim of your own mistakes, others are, so be less conscious about yourself in this case and think on how the mistake you have made or are making is affecting others. There is something about caring for others. There is something about putting the needs of others first. It brings wisdom needed for fixing fences. 

Now here are some ways on how to be instructed from past mistakes:

1. Consider the Patterns. There are always patterns that play themselves out in culminating into the mistake you made or are making now. Look for it and try to avoid it next time. You see, it is in identifying the pattern that you can circumvent it and keep it from repeating. Why because if you know the pattern from the previous and now see those patterns playing out again, you could quickly get out of it.
2. Consider the Counsels and your Choices. You must have received advice one way or the other before and during the time of the mistake. So consider them and try to reason why you took the path you took and why you ignored the advice that would had made the difference.

This look strenuous but this are what make wise people. The wise are those that have learned to receive instruction from all their past mistakes.

How To Retrain Your Mental Disposition

You mind thus far has been conditioned to working a certain way. It has learned how best it can process data and how best it can also dispose from it when called on.

Do you ever wonder why you make certain decisions under certain peculiar circumstances. Have you really studied yourself to see that you tend to doing certain things the same way, how that you come to certain conclusions almost without too much fore thought? Yes, this is your mental disposition - having proclivities of or the propensity to behaving a certain way.

You arrived here due to several number of factors all through your life.

Have you notice that you repeat your mistakes almost as if you were doing it on purpose or not willing to learn from past ones?

This is not entirely your fault, you have become conditioned this way. However there's hope!

Do you fancy living more deliberately, I mean being more in control, making more informed and wiser decisions?

Do you know that your mental disposition is so strong in how it influences other peoples first impression of you?

Do you see how it is very important to be more in control of your own mind, rather than allowing your sometimes untrustworthy subconscious, make critical but seemingly spontaneous decisions for you?

Can my own mind deceive me? Yes, constantly.

How To Realign Your Self Perception

Perception is everything. How you see yourself is of uttermost importance to how you turn out in life.

Often times we perceive others as something, while we see ourselves as nothing. You think they are just lucky or perhaps it is because of their personality.

The truth is that if you go closer to this ones you will discover that they are not superhuman either. You will realize that they are just ordinary people that refused to believe that they are ordinary.

They chose to believe that they are something while you chose to be believe that you are just one of many people that are out they. But you can't be more farther from the truth.

The truth is that you are special, but until you start believing it, you won't amount to much.

How you see yourself is the game changer. If you see yourself as rich, it is because you are rich, and no matter how contrary the current situation may look, you will eventually become how you see yourself. But if you see yourself as weak and poor, I can tell you with authority that you can't beat that.

Watch Over Your Thoughts, They Are Seeds.

Thoughts are seeds that grow into words, and words are fruits that nourishes or kills the hearer, of which you the speaker of it are chief(because your words affects firstly you, secondarily others ) and the seeds of the fruit of your words grows into your attitude, disposition and lifestyle.

Evidently you will always attract what you are constantly thinking about.

Thoughts are very powerful, it repels as well as it attracts.

Therefore if you are not seeing certain things in your life, I guarantee you that you can trace it back to your thought pattern; you must have been repelling it in your thoughts or are attracting other things that will naturally counter that thing you really want manifest.

Take for example your want increased finances, but you think all day about how impossible it is to meet the bills - maybe because of the economic crunch , trust me that kind of thought will only create a cloud of depression around you and consequently it will repel any form of financial increase, it will even repel promising relationships that might just carry you into a new level of financial overflow.

A lot have been said about thoughts, that it is almost becoming a cliche, but it doesn't take one bit any potency from it. Thoughts are powerful, they are a very potent force.

Now, what are seeds? From the physical point off view, seeds are very small in nature, but they carry within them the very potential of becoming a very large tree, and bringing forth fruits after their kind. Thoughts are the same way, they may look very insignificant, but they carry in them the very potential to make or mar you.

Strive Against Mediocrity

Excellence dwelling too long on the same spot will become mediocrity. By definition, mediocrity is excellence sticking its head in the euphoria and praise of yesterday, basking and wallowing in the mire of self effacing applause, forgetting that real excellence is in staying forever at prime's state.

Mediocrity is excellence on vacation for too long.

You have to be weary of dwelling on the same spot for too long however how dazzling it may appear or seem. You'll have to keep going up.

You see, it is not just in attaining excellence, cause anyone may do so, but it is in sustaining it that you will escape the the damp quarters of mediocrity avenue.

Sustaining excellence is not cheap, yet it is more expensive to maintain mediocre status, cause mediocrity will cost you in later years.

You must come to terms with the fact that in order to stay in excellence, in order to stay at the top of your game, you will have to strive against mediocrity every other day of your life.

You would strive against mediocrity by two major ways:

Find Yourself

In the world today it has become very easy to get lost and stuck in it's hustle and bustle. You actually don't have to try too hard to become carried about by the 'sleight of hand' of nothingness.

People now don't know how to even find themselves. They actually see themselves as 'among the number'. These ones can hardly believe that there is anything special about themselves.

It has become the norm to get lost in the flow of the hyper activity generated from some select quarters without genuine impact to life.

Nations are lost, social groups are chasing the winds, entrepreneurs making money off of others without foreseen satisfaction in sight. It has become a hopeless rat race.

Humanity have become lost. Who can save her? Who or what can bring her back in course? Who, if not the very ones that made a mess of it.

It will take people everywhere who have finally found themselves to make the giant strides needed. Have you found yourself?

How Do I Work it - working my vision into manifestation?

The difference between having a vision and seeing its fulfillment is also the difference between KNOWLEDGE and WISDOM.

What is knowledge? It is enlightenment. Knowledge is a vision, a revelation, an illumination. But for you to see vision manifest, it takes wisdom.

However, you don't get from knowledge into wisdom. You must need go through UNDERSTANDING.

So, what is understanding? It is perspective. It is the ability to see perspectives. It is the ability to comprehend knowledge gained and put them into perspective.

Understanding goes beyond knowledge. Knowledge might show you how to do a certain thing a number of ways, but understanding  will bring you into seeing which way is best among all the other ways knowledge had provided and it may also show you why it is the best way.

Understanding bridges knowledge to wisdom. Meta knowledge as in the above image may also be understanding.

What then is wisdom? It is the ability to use knowledge aright; The ability to put latent knowledge to work. Wisdom converts passive knowledge into active knowledge.

So for you to see your vision(which is knowledge) come to fruition, you must apply wisdom(which is the ability to give form to your vision).

Success is not in having a vision alone, it is in having the ability to WORK IT!

Knowledge may put you over, but wisdom takes you all the way to the blessed place - whatever that is for you.

Now, knowledge comes from gathering information, or having a revelation of information(vision).

Understanding comes from having perspective to what you have known - this can be achieved through comprehension. In other words, understanding is the ability to comprehend knowledge thereby gaining accurate perspective.

Wisdom can not be gained or learned, it could only be given. It could only be imparted. See how on this post.

So in working out your vision into manifestation, you need wisdom. Wisdom is the principal thing.

You have to insist on getting wisdom!

Salvaging an Already Hopeless Situation to Win

Are you stuck? Do everything around you seem to be crashing and coming at nothing? Do you feel like throwing the towel? Is that situation as hopeless as it could ever get?

Well good news! There is hope that hopes against hopelessness. It is one that can salvage an already hopeless situation.

Read this: A family moved into a new neighborhood along with Snow - Snow is the name of their dog. After the family settled in, Snow discovered an opening leading to the yard of the neighbors next door. Surely Snow went through that opening and found Bullet -
Bullet is a bigger dog that lives next door (a giant compared to Snow).

Well, Snow, after getting the beating of her life from Bullet ran back home, having patches all over. Surely, Snow went back in the next day and received even a more sorer bashing - Bullet handed it to her again, this time Snow almost lost an ear!

Snow went up there again the following day and the next and was destroyed by Bullet each time.

Riding on the Storm of Pressure

It is the internal pressure exerted on the inside of a balloon that eventually blows it up. It is also the external pressure exerted on an object that crushes it to smithereens.

Pressure can for sure wreck irreparable damages to things and beings alike.

But here is the thing, pressure is a force, either external or internal, but like all forces, pressure also can be used masterfully as a propellant by you for attaining increased productivity in any area.

You can put that pressure you might be filling right now to work. It can actually work for you as a servant into bringing out the best in you.

The pressure that is on to you right now can either be allowed by you to crush you or to carry you into a new level of increase.

The Necessities of Having the Right Convictions

Masterful men and women, champions; are people with firm convictions.

For you to be a man or woman given to a good cause and eventually see tremendous results; making an impact in society, you must be a person of conviction.

The difference between you and where you ought to be is in your convictions. Are you really persuaded about what you are persuaded about?

For you to be outstanding in life you have to be firm in your convictions and not just any conviction, the right convictions.

Having the right convictions for and about life is very crucial to your well being.

Here are the reasons you need to have the right convictions in your life in order to begin living the life.

Having the right convictions and sticking with them would:

1. Construct your path aright. Not only that, it will direct your steps also; propelling you to walk in them.
2. Empower and equip you with weapons of war to fight off life's challenges.
3. Open doors of opportunities and favor as people are seeking to initiate and cultivate relationships at all levels and sort with persons with the right convictions and persuasions.
4. Give your life meaning and purpose.

Here are why holding to the wrong convictions can be counter productive.

Living life with the wrong convictions would:

1. Carry you through life till the end only to realize you have missed it; running after things that was never the real prize to gain.
2. Hurt your relationships.
3. Means you are living a lie; an illusion.

Here are some wrong convictions.

1. My net worth will provide for me real fulfillment. So you go through life chasing after money and materialism.
2. I am the only one that care about me so I will put myself first in every thing. It is me and me alone.
3. Cultivating relationships and putting them first will make me weak.

The above makes for a compelling argument, the immense necessity of being a man or woman of conviction, to living a fulfilling life.

How To be a Man or Woman of Conviction

As a man or woman you have to have a firm conviction about what is true about your life or life in general.

For you to amount to anything in life your have to be fully given to a particular belief or opinion about any thing that means or will mean anything to you.

You are your convictions. What forms your beliefs directs your life.

You cannot act better than what you believe.

What you believe fashions your mentality, your mentality sponsors your actions and your action furnishes your life; because you are what you do.

Having the right convictions will be discussed in another post (please look out for it). This post is to reveal to you the importance of having a conviction and how to have or build it.

It is better to have a wrong conviction or persuasion about anything than not to have any at all. Because a person with a wrong conviction can be persuaded otherwise.

But a man without conviction is vulnerable to abuse; what's more, he will be tossed to and fro by every wind of deceit that will be presented to him or her.

Do You Have What It Takes To Do You?

There is something each and every one of us knows about ourselves that know one else does.

There is a path we know we must take, a path that would definitely sound or look stupid to others if we were to tell them about it.

It is often a lonely path. A not so popular direction.

It is a path when taken, would attract challenges, and this we know on the inside, and that is why it so scary for us to give ourselves totally to it.

It usually would require something masterful on our path.

So, do you have what it takes to do you? would you take that path?

This is what "the you in you" know to do, but will you go for it? Have you gotten what it takes to go for it?

You are a Product of Love

Men and women are  products of love, We may not realize it but everything every where reveal this to us.

Everything that happens and goes on around us reveals that we a people made by love and purposed to give love back.

Even at our lowest points as human beings there's always still a little glimmer of love.

But what was and still is our greatest undoing is that we try to attain this inherent trait in us; this thing deep down on the inside of us that we don't know how to even describe or prescribe, by going totally to the opposite direction.

In sincere search for this thing - which I call LOVE, we go ignorantly or blindly towards HATE instead.

The more we try to be who we could be and know we should, the more we watch ourselves consistently turn the other direction.

Mankind as we know it is constantly at the moment destroying it's inherent instincts; which is to GIVE LOVE BACK!

The Power in Living Life Intentionally

Lets face it, most times we don't even have a clue were we're headed in our lives, careers or relationships and we find ourselves going through the motions - coasting through lie. However, it is harmful to just go through life one day at a time without being at least intentional with our lifestyle, choices and actions.

We may not know what next step to take in our lives, when to make some decisions that can take us to the next level, when to let go of some relationships, or when to stop certain lifestyle or habits that weigh us down evidently or elusive to us; However, amidst this, we have to be deliberate with our lives, styles or choices.

Being deliberate or intentional with our lives is a powerful tool to possess in our life journey.

Purge and Restock your Mind

Have you ever heard the saying "you are what you eat"? Well, here is another one for you; "you become what you are conditioned to". It is Dr Paul Enenche that remarked "whatever you focus on multiplies". Everything that is going on around you is replenishing your mind and thought pattern according to their will, they are on a subconscious level selling you a lifestyle. Like I said in an earlier post, "man is a product of influence"; we eventually become what we focus on; we eventually become what constantly focus on us.