HOW TO IMPROVE YOURSELF.

                                   

Real keys to self-improvement!

Every now and again I meet very intelligent and highly skilled people at different workshop or seminars, I hear them speak and immediately know they are given to wide and deep study and are quite exposed. Many of this people travel and have in one time or the other worked overseas, some with multinationals and many others in very well structured and sophisticated organization, they speak with impressive reasoning and are very logical in there postulation, argument and suggestions. You just immediately know that these guys are made up of very good stuff. But I look at their career situation and challenges and wonder how people of such level of thinking and reasoning can become chief pray of career frustration and underperformance, then gradually I began to understand that having something in your mind doesn’t necessary mean you apply it in your life. You may know the truth about a lot of things but can profit from it because you apply or handle this truth in your situation. For example a man may know that a lady is desperately chasing after does not really love or want him she’s just interested in benefits, in money and all the gift, yet he can’t make a decision on this truth to walk away, he’s too weak in love to do that.

Habit, mind precept, emotional and sentimental factors, identity crises and their opinion of so called important people of misapplication of obvious truth difficult. I think one of the reasons why we really don’t improve despite all we know is reluctant to accept our fault and weaknesses, we prefer to ignore this weaknesses and pretend they are not there rather than accept them and try to subdue them. It’s funny but very true that we easily see the weaknesses we are equally guilty of in orders and gladly Jorge them on it. Have heard many lazy bosses calling their subordinate lazy, have heard many ignorant leaders calling their followers ignorant, have heard many selfish people calling others selfish, have heard many greedy people calling others greedy, have heard many immoral spiritual leaders call others sinful and have heard many corrupt and undisciplined Nigerians refers to political office holders and government officials as corrupt.

Hmmm… I think generally as people we are slow to accepting in our negatives and repugnant to applying quick changes until we are forced by people or circumstances to do so. When you refuse to accept a weakness or a challenge you hardly make the move to improve on it, for instance, I had quite an exploitative and abusive upbringing, I wasn’t particularly anyone favorite and it was made clear in every way possible hence, I grew up an angry fellow, I react very quickly and aggressively to any treatment indicative of subjugation, exploitation and cheating, I couldn’t stand anyone trying to take advantage of me, I will fight and defend myself in all possible way. At times I get so angry and I become verbally very toxic, because of this weakness I kept a lot of distance from everyone because familiarity indeed bring contempt and I couldn’t handle contempt but with time subsequent to pressure from my close friends, counsels from my spiritual leaders, severe criticism from my colleagues and team members, I began to work on it to become better. I think am getting better, I believe my team members can attest to the fact that am friendlier, more considerate, tolerant and understanding than I use to be. I’ve learn to accept the fact that people treat me the way they do not because of whom I am but because of how they are, so it’s their problem not mine.

Dear friends to go far in life and your career pursuit, you must long for and desire rapid improvement. Improvement is only applicable to people and things that are yet to at their best hence, we all need to improve, except you believe you can’t be better than the way you are right now in career, relationship, family, life, finance and relevance.

Looking at some certain behaviors that will rapidly improve your overall life quality and enhance your pursuit of excellent.

     1.     BE ADAPTIVE AND FLEXIBLE.

You are not the absolute reference and SI unit for anything in this life, yet it’s good to be principled and oppose personal norms and believe systems, but please don’t impose or enforce your own believe on someone else or other people. Please am not saying don’t advocate or promote what you believe, it’s actually the best way of doing things but what am saying is don’t condemn, reject, criticize or Judge others if they fail to agree with you, your stand or your judgment. Life I believe is about outcome and result, people may doubt your opinion or position on certain issues but no one can doubt a wonderful result or performance. For instance, I have a quite number of friends and colleagues who smoke and do a lot of alcohol, I don’t smoke and I don’t do alcohol, this of course does not make me better or superior in anyway, we are just different in our personal believe and principles, occasionally I warn them on the danger and consequence of the intake of these substances, they already know so it is pointless of rubbing it in. I may be strong in this area but they may be stronger and better at managing their anger and temper an area where am still working on, don’t be a judge be a helper, an encourager, a coach. Everyone cant an in fact shouldn’t be like you so be adaptive and flexible.

2.     ADMIT WHEN YOU ARE WRONG.

One of the things many people find very hard to accept is the truth about their mistakes and error, we love to explain away our error and mistakes, we hate to take the blame and responsibilities. To us, everything is hardly our fault, something or someone must be responsible for that wrong doing, error or mistakes. In this part of the world  when we realize no one or situation can be blame for our obvious mess, we put it straight on Satan, the devil must be the reason behind this my misconduct, it can’t be me, it must be the devils work. It is the devil that pushed me (what a joke…). Dear friends, accept when you are wrong, take responsibilities. Start every probe into a negative development with you as the first candidate under scrutiny. Ask what you could have done different to avert the mess, don’t keep blaming your subordinate, your boss, top management or your team members for everything wrong , start with you. These I promise is the best way to improve your performance, admit when wrong , find it easy to say I made a mistake, anytime you do its refreshing I tell you and it immediately triggers in you the quest for  remedy and solution.

 3.     CHANGE YOUR MIND.

Many of us today have continued for many years in career part and life journey that are frustrating, tough and dissatisfying. We probably ended up on this journey due to poor judgment or peer pressure and suddenly we know we have made a huge mistake. Please do not continue on that sorrowful part, change your mind. Many single folks today are in very terrible and abusive relationship that they know will eventually result in crisis and disaster should they end up getting married but they believe they have invested too much in emotion, finance, sacrifice and years to give up on the relationship or the person involved, they can’t change their mind, where will they start from they usually say, what will people think of me they ask, hence, they are willing to endure over 50 years of an unhappy and totally frustrating marriage and the possibilities of a divorce or even untimely death, raising dysfunctional kids that will become menace to the society because they are too weak to change their minds on a wrong choice in friendship, courtship and dating. They are too blind emotionally to see better opportunities with better people that will lead to the marriage of their dreams, how triaged. Hmmm… take for instance, if you are supposed to go for an occasion in porthacourt from Lagos and many hours into the journey you suddenly realized that the vehicle you boarded is actually heady for Abuja, it will be absolutely foolish to continue the journey to Abuja no matter how far gone, because your occasion is at porthacourt. Change your mind no matter how far gone so as not to end up in a wrong destination, it is far better to arrive late at your occasion than not to show up because you wouldn’t change your mind when you missed it.

4.     ACCEPT YOUR IMPERFECT STATE.

You are not perfect, you will make mistakes again and again, it human to hair. Accepting your imperfect state is a mark of intelligence and courage, the willing to adapt with new information, forgive yourself and move on, you can’t change the past, so focus on building a better future.

Wishing you all the best in your career and life in general as you apply some of these principles. Keep winning and see you at the top.

Best Regards.