dear Diary #9

A BATON IN HAND

Dear Diary,

What drives you? What gets you up in the morning in pursuit of your dreams and aspirations?

Wait...do you even have goals? If you do, that's great! But...what measures have you put in place to help achieve them? Or are they just sitting, boldly written across a vision board in your room...?

If you don't have goals, or dreams, well...heads up! We're changing that tuhday!😁

Contrary to the quickly becoming popular belief, every human being on this planet has a purpose. There's a reason why you're here. You're not here just to add to the global population, or to just "chill". There's a role for you to play, something you could do to add value to the world we live in. This is the reason why it is non-factual to say, "I am nothing, I'm of no value". Not only is it wrong to tell yourself that or allow someone to tell you that, it's also factually inaccurate.

Have you not realised that there are certain things you are just good at? Maybe in the area of leadership, when it comes to leading a group of people your light just seems to shine so bright. That's an important element you posses which can make the world a better place. Or, when it comes to listening and encouraging people, you're on top of your game, you're just good at it. There are people that will benefit from this, you may be able to help people out of their depressive states. This is not to say that you should only pursue what you're good at. There are things you may not be good at, but with a little hardwork and applied knowledge you can develop the skill.

I could go on and on...

Once you are able to identify what gets you excited, what gets you up and going, the thing(s) that make you feel alive, you can start building a dream, a goal from that foundation. If it's leadership, you need to enhance it by gaining knowledge. For e.g., you could undertake courses, read books, listen to great leaders, and upgrade the talent you already have. By so doing, you put yourself in a better position, fully equipped to deal with anything. You acquire knowledge, to strengthen your "craft". This will bring about the difference between you and someone running on raw talent in it's unrefined state.

What is a goal? A goal is simply the object of a person's ambition or effort. This goes to say, that once you have your eyes set on your aim -your goal- you put in the necessary measures to get you achieving.

It is unhealthy to live your life without any goals or anything you're working towards. There are people who live their lives like that. Such people wake up in the morning and tell themselves, "what can come, can come". Yes, maybe it's said out of frustration from many failures possibly experienced, but how is that profitable?

There are some still, who live their lives solely to please another. Everything they do, whatever decision they make, needs to be endorsed by another individual, whom they have deemed as important to them. It could be a loved one, a boss, anyone. So whatever they are told to do, that's what they do. They have no dreams of their own. They live and work towards other people's dreams. In fact, their sole existence is dependent on other people.

First and foremost, you need to understand that every human being is born with a baton in hand, you are born with a goal to be accomplished. Finding what that is, is not as tedious as it may seem. One way you can do this, as I've explained is finding out what your passion is, and from there you develop a goal. Some people while in school, develop a passion for helping others, they are drawn to the sick and wish they could help; out of this group, some may end up as health workers. Others have a passion for the country, they want to defend it, fight for it, protect it, they may become soldiers or policemen.

Helping people realise their dreams is a good thing, but what is yours? 👀

For those who live life with a defeated mindset, what you need to cultivate is self discipline. Self discipline is the ability to control oneself, and to make oneself work hard or behave in a particular way without needing anyone else to tell you what to do. Four areas that come with self discipline include: Self-control, Motivation, Persistence, Goals.

So you have your Goals, what next? Constant and conscious efforts need to be made to to achieve Self-control, which will help in decision making (for e.g. you want to buy something so bad, but you decide not to because you're saving up for your project). Having an accountability partner will help make Self-control a little more easy to achieve; Motivating yourself everyday, ruminating over the joy you will feel when you have finally realised your dream; and Persistence, not giving up when all the odds seem to be against you.

It's not going to be easy, it won't happen within a day. It will take time, effort, persistence and motivation to develop self-discipline, which is desperately needed to achieve goals and accomplish dreams. Dreams don't work, unless you do.

If you find that someone is also running towards the same dream as you, that should not discourage you; the sky is large enough for all the stars to cast their own light.

I'm rooting for you. You can do it.🤗

"Vision without action is a daydream; Action without vision is a nightmare."

~Anonymous