BE FREE, MANIFEST AND SUCCEED!

By Babatunde Oladele

I got this insight after watching a movie entitled “Bubble Boy.”

Humans, when caged by self, dogma or fellow humans cannot be free, neither can they manifest their full potential nor succeed in their endeavours. The very thought of freedom, manifestation, and success suggests an image of outward flow of activities rather than an inward blossom.

However, freedom, manifestation and success do not happen without some degrees of internal and external struggles. These restrictions usually come in form of limitations imposed by the self, others or the environment; and it is to the extent that you overcome them that you will be free, become and succeed.

Therefore, to be free, to manifest or to succeed, here are three keys you may find very helpful:

1.    Go out: you cannot reach your full potential unless you go out of your comfort zone. Have you seen a tortoise moving before? No matter how big or small it is, it cannot move anywhere until it juts its head out of the shell. Humans are no different; there is no progress unless you go out of your shell. You cannot succeed unless you discard the limiting beliefs and self-doubts that have held you down for whatever length of time. To grow, you need to proceed from one level of reasoning or operation to the next. To succeed, you have to go out of the miry of nonchalance and average performance.

2.    Reach out: as you go out of your comfort zone or bland level to pursue your dreams and ideals, you also need to reach out to people and resources that will help you to achieve your objectives along the way. Fortune most often does not favour the taciturn. You need to identify the persons or association that can enhance you as a person as well as enable you to accomplish your aim, and then reach out to them. This is not limited to humans alone; as you are “going out” you will also encounter books, events and other resources that will be helpful to you. Reach out to them, subscribe to them, engage them and assimilate them.

3.    Launch out: to the extent that you have gone out and reached out, you also need to launch out with the idea and initiative you have been nursing, or those that occur to you as you become. A popular maxim holds that “people will not celebrate you for your intentions, but your actions.” To succeed, you need to have a sizable action quotient per day. And the key to doing that is making every hour count. Input substance into your hours and you will have a productive day. Never let an hour pass by without a substantial investment of rigorous thinking or effort with short, medium or long-term yield in it. Even the chunk of time you take to rest or spend with your family constitutes a judicious investment of time that will produce positives. So, don’t think it’s all about working alone.

So, dare the odds and discouragements to launch out and start that business, NGO, product/service line, and whatever it is that you have tucked in the recess of your mind for so long. Don’t fall victim of the paralysis that develops from over-analysis. You will never know all there is to know, have all you need to start, nor have a panoramic view of all there is to see about the idea anyway. So start where you are.

I conclude with a saying I heard some years ago, “instead of waiting for a perfect time, make the present time perfect.”