PREPARATION TIME VS WASTED TIME by leila Kigha
21:31
Have you ever looked back at your life and felt like you are wasting your time and life?
Have you ever looked at your peers and felt you are the only one left behind in practically everything? Most of your friends are married, have good jobs,have kids,promoted, ride great cars etc
well i have experienced that repeatedly in the past.
I am coming from a week very rich in experience and challenges. Had alot of
things i did put into question and alot of new lessons learned.One of such lessons was about the value of the time of preparation.
When i felt like all my efforts were worthless and not appreciated, and was at the point of almost giving up, a very dear friend reminded me of a statement Dr Shawn Smith made 'preparation time is never wasted time'
This statement opened my eyes to a world of reality i had been taking for granted.
"The will to win is worthless if you do not have the will to prepare."Thane Yost
Many of us are caught in the illusion that because we desire to succeed , things are just going to happen over night simply because we desire or we wish and when things don't happen in the days or months ahead we give up and say it didn't work out or it wasn't meant for us.
Well i have news for you only those who spend time preparing will identify and respond to opportunity when they meet one and that will result in manifestation.
We are so impatient that we don't give time to deligently study, research on the projects, plans or dreams we have. We think it surffices to dream big'but like the saying goes " if wishes were horses beggars will ride"!
Benjamin Franklin said "if you fail to prepare, you are preparing to fail"Preparation time can be considered as incubation, conception or nurturing time. The dreams and projects you have need time to mature and become living entities , first of all in you before you can take it to others. You can only give what you have.This time is usually characterised by somany things, some you can even consider unimportant or a waste of time.But great men are those with a track record of several moments of doing unreasonable things and at the moment of doing them , they had no idea why they did them but those same things years later on became the bedrock of their greatness.
Probably the greatest example of
persistence is Abraham Lincoln. If you want to learn about somebody who
didn't quit,but took each moment to revamp, look no further.
Born into poverty, Lincoln was faced with defeat throughout his life. He lost eight elections, twice failed in business and suffered a nervous breakdown.
He could have quit many times - but he didn't and because he didn't quit, he became one of the greatest presidents in the history of his country. I wonder what would have happened had he not been elected president of the United states at that moment.It is certain what we call United States of America today would have been something else.
Born into poverty, Lincoln was faced with defeat throughout his life. He lost eight elections, twice failed in business and suffered a nervous breakdown.
He could have quit many times - but he didn't and because he didn't quit, he became one of the greatest presidents in the history of his country. I wonder what would have happened had he not been elected president of the United states at that moment.It is certain what we call United States of America today would have been something else.
Thomas Edison's teachers said he was "too stupid to learn anything." He was fired from his first two jobs for being "non-productive." As an inventor, Edison made 1,000 unsuccessful attempts at inventing the light bulb. When a reporter asked, "How did it feel to fail 1,000 times?" Edison replied, "I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps."
These are probably two very popular stories we have heard before, about men who did not give up at the first sign of opposition or challenge.
The path to greatness i have come to realise is for the courageous; those who are willing to take the risk of trusting their mentors, guides, instincts, etc to take them to their destination even if they don't understand one bit what it is all about.
Abraham Lincoln said if he had 8 hours to chop off a tree, he would spend of those hours sharpening his axe.
Preparation takes more time than manifestation. On the journey to greatness several things happen to you amongst them the following are indicators that say you are on track:
- you come accross people, mentors, leaders you look up to who can give you guidance and direction on how to go about it. No man is an island, there will always be people who have succeeded in their assignments, and these people are there to guide you. You need them, it is not an option.
- you come to a point where you realise you need to give your self to study, research and consecration in order to get clarity as to what you have to do and why. You need to ask yourself questions and seek answers to them, because these will help you discover the relevance and differentiation of your services or product.
- you are involved in tasks that seem to have no connection with your dreams or projects. No one will is going to give you big responsibility if you cannot demonstarte faithfulness in small things. Like Dr Shawn Smith says, if you think you are too big for small things, then you are too small for big things.
- you serve others faithfully. No body is going to give you your own or serve you in your own business if you cannot give quality time to see to it that another man's business or idea thrives.
- you grow above peer pressure. If you are still being influencedby peer pressure then there is still a long way to go. For you to be ableto make the most out of your preparatin time, you need to be able to rise above peer pressure and focus on the things that are of value and importance for your life per moment.
- last but not the least, you seem to make mistakes all the time lol. I laugh because this has been the most difficult lesson for me to learn personally. being a person who always strives to do and be best at what i do, it was very hard for me to accept,when my work was rejected or criticised. i felt like i had given all i had and deserved better. But i got to learn, your best isn't the best there is, there is so much more and you need to reach out and draw.
These and several others are aspects that characterise your life when you are on a journey to greatness.
Don't let this moment of your life waste away because you think you are late or wasting your time. Every moment you fail to actively make a choice to invest in the process of preparation, you are giving room to fate to decide for you.
In the words of Dr Shwan Smith "you will either live life by choice or by default, by faith or by fate"
Which ever you choose will determine your manifestation when opportunity presents itself, and be rest assured opportunity is sure going to come!
Pictures curtesy:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/
http://healthfullygood.com/2013/12/dont-give-up/
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