I write this inspiring charge to you my friends especially the youths who seem to have lost faith in the Nigerian nation, in people and most importantly in themselves. I know it’s so hard to have faith in a system that dealt you so much fate. It is equally very difficult to trust a country when its leaders are precarious holocausts. It is even more difficult when one is used to a system where nothing works, a ‘partnership’ where trust flew out from the window a long time ago and in an endeavour where repeated incidences of rejection, setbacks, impropriety, lack and brick walls are its clear hallmarks. Some people are even so conversant with failure now that they have stopped trying and given up on themselves. You cannot afford to fail yourself. But I want you to remember that it is often the last key in a bunch that opens the lock!

It is so sad that we set targets, map out plans, develop ideas, evolve goals and make New Year resolutions year in, year out without achieving them. We lose confidence and the capacity to succeed each time we refuse to push hard and achieve our targets.

HOW TO ACHIEVE YOUR ELUSIVE GOALS

1. 1. Kill idleness: In this life, we must not only dream, we must do, we must not only do, we must dare! Don’t stay idle. Do something. You must have the commitment to take action. A positive mind-set alone won’t get you to the place of your dreams, just like talent alone is not enough. You’ll have to ‘do something!’ Remember, big doors swing on little hinges; taking small steps of faith will move you forward by engaging yourself! Moreover, God can only bless the ‘works’ of your hands, thus, if there is no work in your hand, there is nothing for God to bless!

A lazy and an idle man can never succeed! Not even as a Christian. How can we achieve our resolutions by doing nothing? We must engage ourselves, remain productive and creative in order to make a success out of our lives. Don’t stay in bed unless you can make money in bed!

2. Cease every opportunity. An opportunity is an often-time-once-upon-a-life-time pathway to breakthrough! You can never get a second opportunity to make a first impression! You cannot get rich by working for someone else! Develop your talent and make money from it. Find every opportunity in every challenge and use it to your advantage.

I have seen many people who took control of their destinies by doing something when fate confines them to doing nothing. I still remember that I developed my writing skills better during the notorious 6 months ASUU strike and consequently published my first book during the time! In all modesty and humility, an art as ‘ordinary’ as writing has brought me so much acclaim, fame and fortune through editing, ‘shadow writing’, brief preparation and editing, political articles, issuing of communique, writing speech for Political Leaders and principally writing, publishing and launching of Biographies including that of a President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria! There is something you know how to do, all you need do is ‘do it’ during that work-less opportunity.

3. Be Flexible! You cannot keep doing the same thing and expect the same result. Who does that except a mad person! Change your strategy whenever you hit the rocks. When your faith runs into obstacles, your flexibility keeps you in the race. You need the ability to ‘roll with the punches,’ ‘swim with the tide’, to bend without breaking and to tactically achieve without necessarily compromising. Don’t marry your methods! Don’t stick to the old rules that keep failing you just because they are timeless rules. This life doesn’t yield to normal people! You cannot make a difference unless you dare to be different! Winners don’t do different things, they only do things differently! Be willing to make a mid-course correction when it’s needed.

Life does not answer to luck and conventional practice, it answers to Grace and the unusual! Flexibility, however, is not ambivalence, ‘wishy-washiness’ inconsistency or mid-road quitting. Flexibility is trudging on but with another method, executing your ideas with a change of strategy! It involves an attitude of determination to adjust to life’s challenges and stay on course; trusting God for wisdom; to fine-tune your responses to changing circumstances. A change of mindset of tact rather than tackiness!When we change the way we look at things, the things we look at change! That is the whole crux of attitude!

4. Stay firm and never quit: no one can achieve any great thing without consistency and dogged persistence. An impatient driller can never find oil! A ‘quitsome’ miner can never hit gold! Most juicy things are buried in the deep! You must be resolute to achieve your resolutions. Resolve not to quit If you wish to win. Life is a drama with no rehearsal. You will encounter problems that will leave you with no option but to stand still and remain firm in order to get to your destination. Your destination is the nation of your destiny; you can only get there If you are a ‘citizen’ of firmness and resoluteness!

5. Never give in to fear and despair: Don’t allow fear to decide your response to life. Fear does not exist beyond your mind. Fear is false expectation appearing real. Faith your fear and it will be starved to death. In moments of despair, feed your faith. Stand still and brave. Stop your irrational, emotion-driven behaviours and stay courageous. Act brave and bold even if you are not, no one can tell the difference!

6. Quit talking! Too much vain and careless talk will lead to your ruin. A vain talker is a niggard indeed. Don’t talk yourself into defeat. Act, don’t talk! Speak instead! Speak to your circumstances. There is a difference! Talk is cheap, speaking is expensive! You never get paid to talk! Little wonder, oratory profession is called ‘Public speaking’! Believe in yourself and speak life.

7. Believe in God! This is perhaps the most important, the more reason I saved it as the last point. Pray as If everything depends on God, work as If everything depends on you! Look for God’s way forward in every circumstance. The ‘God factor’ is often the missing link to our accomplishments in life. If God can create the entire world in 6 days, How big is your resolution that God cannot give you in millisecond? Expect God to take action when you diligently seek Him. Be ready to move forward when He opens the way. Be born again!For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, [even] our faith.1 John 5:4.

God bless you all. May you achieve all your elusive dreams in the remaining months of this year. I will celebrate with you. Remember it is not the end of the success stories, if your success story is not there!Keep on succeeding.

‘Tosin Ayo.

‘The word bank’