You are working very hard to make ends meet. You work so hard daily hoping that one day mother luck will shine on you and everything will just fall in place. You work hard with the hope that success will by chance come your way. Actually, I am not totally against hard work but it is obvious that it takes more than hard work to succeed. It is also important to know that success does not come by chance. As you are striving hard to succeed in life, you must be smart about it. What I am advocating here is that, there is a better way to achieve your goals in life. You can achieve more with far less effort in life if you work smart rather than work hard. If hard work alone can bring success, labourers who work at construction sites should ordinarily be more successful than any other person. We all know this is not actually the case; labourers are among the poorest people you can find around. The question now is, how do I Work Smart? You can work smart by: being in control of your life, focusing on things you can control, starting with the end in mind (that is, start with your overall life goal in mind).
Be In Control Of Your Life
The first step toward working smart is to be in control of your life. It is a universal fact that if you fail to control your life, someone else will certainly control it for you. Many people are frustrated and unfulfilled because they have failed to take charge of their life. They live their life base on circumstances, events and other people, things which they do not have control over. Consequently, they are forced to act the scripts written by circumstances, events, people and other situations everyday of their life. Due to lack of control, they have no idea of what tomorrow holds for them. They accept whatever card is dealt to them by life not knowing how to play it to their advantage. What a confused life?… Such people blame situations, events other people and circumstances for their woes. They look outward on who to blame for their problems instead of looking inward at themselves and find out how they contribute personally to the problems. They focus more on the problems rather than the solutions. Very often they prefer to continue on the wrong path rather than retracing their step backward and follow the right path. They don’t have values, plans and goals for their life.
How to be in Control of your Life
1) Live a principle centered life – As a principle centered person you have the capacity to stand from emotion of the situation and from other factors that would act on you and evaluate the options in all your decisions. The ability to set apart your emotion and evaluate all the options will help you to make better and informed decisions whose outcomes are predictable.
2) Take Responsibility for your life – If you find it difficult to accept responsibility for any situation you find yourself in life, you automatically cede control of your life to whatever or whoever you decide to blame for the situation. When you blame someone else, it makes it impossible for you to find a way out of the unwanted situation you find yourself. Blaming others for your predicaments will lead to wrong analysis of the situation because you are going to ask wrong questions in your quest to solve the problem. Wrong questions about the situation will definitely lead to wrong solution. Refusing to take responsibility is a big problem, which is why my heart bleeds when some people open their mouth to blame colonialism for our problem in Nigeria, 50 years after they have left. If you fail to accept responsibility for your predicament, getting out of it becomes very difficult and may even be impossible. Before you blame someone else, always remember that you could have done something to prevent the unwanted situation. Each time you point one finger, the other four are pointing at you.
3) Take Action – In this life you either act or be acted upon. This is a universal principle of life. You cannot remain idle or neutral, you are either gaining or you are losing. If it is true that “it is either you act or be acted upon” then, it is better to act than being acted upon. When you are acted upon you have little or no control at all. Make that bold step, do that thing, register that business stop procrastination. Procrastination is one of the major enemies of progress and success.
Focus On Things You Can Control
Situations in life can be categorized into two: 1) those we can control and 2) those we cannot control. If you ever want to be successful in life without unnecessary stress, you must always focus your energy on those things you can control. Focus on yourself rather than others. Don’t waste your time trying to change other people. Instead, look for what you need to change about yourself and move on with your life.
Start With The End In Mind
All your decision and actions must align with your overall life goal. Each time you are about to make a decision, always ask yourself; will this decision take me closer to my life goal? Is it in harmony with my ultimate life goal? Don’t do anything that is contrary to your ultimate life goal.
Hard work is a good virtue, however, most of the time it will not get you to the promise land. Working hard and not achieving your goals will ultimately lead to frustration. Therefore, as you go about your business, you must start Working Smart! When you work smart, you will always achieve desired result and move ahead in life far less effort. Thank you for reading, have a great week!
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Read, Act, Overcome and Succeed!
Muyiwa Okeola
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