The greatest threat to where you can be is where you have been. Nothing can create failure like success. A lot of minds stagnate after their first taste of achievement. They get comfortable and settle down to enjoy their success. As they do so, they fail to realize that yesterday’s breakthrough could be today’s relic. Are you establishing breakthroughs or nurturing relics?
At a change workshop last week, I showed participants pictures of the very first mobile phone. Well, there was nothing really mobile about it except the fact that it did not have wires connecting it to the wall. It was really big and heavy. We then went through the evolution of mobile phones until we got to today’s smart phones. The difference gave testimony to the fact that you will never know how bad good is until you experience better. Those old phones were once great. Today they are relics.
The external progression of designing phones represented the progression of minds that created them. Your external conditions will change according to the state of your mind which is in turn determined by what you put in there. The mind is like a computer that needs to be loaded with software to operate. It has no mind of its own. The software that you load in there will determine its abilities.
Your present state is a reflection of the software you are operating on. The software is the information you allow into your mind. Buy books that show you where you are going and how to get there. Buy books that show you what other people have accomplished. Read biographies of great achievers. Read stories of courage, about beauty from ashes, and victory from adversity. This ensures that the software in your mind is not limiting as is the case with some people.
For example, a man was really in bad shape financially, yet his wife would assure him that she knew he was trying his best. As loving as that sounded, it sustained a limiting software. If the best that his best could produce was the financial state they were in, then they were in serious trouble.
Have you also heard some people say that it won’t matter whether they won or lost in a competition? There argument is that what is important is to compete. That is also a limiting software. If you were competing to lose, then why bother?
Consider the Olympics. Every athlete that makes it to the finals is very good. However, as good as they are, when you think of the 100 meters race today, the name that comes to many minds is Usain Bolt.
Note that in this race, the difference between the first and the second is often less than a second. However, few remember who came second. It does not end there. The difference between the first and second is not just a medal. It is an entirely different lifestyle. The first will get a medal and millions of dollars in income from endorsements while the second only receives a medal.
Yet some people dare say it does not matter if you come first or last – that the important thing is to compete? Take stock of your software today and ask, ‘what software am I running on?’ whatever you are doing, plan to be the best.
If you are a barber, be the best and the most innovative barber in the country. If you are a teacher, be the best. Whatever you do, plan to be the best and maintain the best position by upgrading your mental software. To stand out you must be outstanding. To make a difference, you must be different.
Every morning a gazelle wakes up, it knows that it must run faster than the fastest cheetah or it will be killed. Every morning a cheetah wakes up, it knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn’t matter whether you are a cheetah or a gazelle. When the sun comes up, you had better be running on a new mental software.
This article is by Wale Akinyemi of Powertalks
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