Posts in category: Blog

“Watch your thoughts, they become your words; watch your words, they become your actions; watch your actions, they become your habits; watch your habits; they become your character; watch your character, it becomes your destiny.” – Lao Tzu.

How accurate the above quote is! Our thoughts are so powerful that they become our lifestyle. We often talk about the concept of mindset. The mindset of an individual comprises their mental inclination and the set of attitudes they hold. Whatever choice a person makes is governed by their mindset. In fact, except for involuntary ones, every other action a person carries out must have originated from their mind. Therefore, it is a fact that one’s mindset will determine if one withers on the vine or breaks a leg.

There are two types of mindsets: an excellent and a fixed one. When you have an attitude of excellence, you seek improvement rather than being the best at something. You are not afraid of failure and acknowledge that it is integral to success. Now that we have established an excellent mindset, it is essential to ask: Do people’s perspectives draw one closer to their goals? If so, how?

First and foremost, an excellent mindset makes you see your goals as if they were in front of you, thereby taking you closer to them, as it were. The mind is so powerful that it can create a positive impact. A good example is the Placebo. A placebo is a dummy medicine containing no active ingredients. For instance, if given salty water, a malaria patient who thinks the salted water is a malaria drug, will get better even though the salty water has nothing to do with malaria. The patient’s health improved, not because of the salted water, but because he had the mentality that he had taken a malaria drug. That is the power of mindset!

In addition, an excellent mindset takes you closer to your goals by making you very willing to make sacrifices. It makes you convinced that all sacrifices made will pay off. The effort made is like a stepping stone that takes you closer to your goals.

In conclusion, high self-esteem creates a successful mindset. Consistency is needed as one travels in this prosperous terrain. Self-esteem will make you acknowledge that you can achieve your goals. An excellent perspective unarguably takes its owner closer to his goals.

“Excellence is the unlimited ability to improve the quality of what you have to offer.” – Rick Pitino. 

Being realistic is always very important, so you don’t have to start a journey without knowing where you are coming from or where you are going. It would be best if you had a practical idea of what you could expect to achieve. For example, how many steps can you take in a day? How many pages can you read in a day?  In your quest for excellence, you must be very clear about what distinction is and what it is not. With such clarity, you will achieve excellence in your academics and career in the face of seeming mediocrity.

With that out of the way, you will agree that most people look forward to achieving excellence in their endeavor, but not many do. The challenge in most cases is that they don’t know what excellence is and is not, so they end up treading the path of mediocrity, doing far little below their ability.

Excellence is not just about getting the significant results that everyone celebrates. It’s more about having small wins here and there that accumulate into the bigger goal. We can see this clearly from Max Verstappen, the 2021 Formula one (World car racing) champion.

At the 2015 Australian Grand Prix, when Max Verstappen was aged 17 years, 166 days, he became the youngest to compete in Formula One. From then till 12th December 2021, when he won his first Formula one Championship, he has always been having small wins here and there right from the lower level.

When Verstappen was in the lower level (Formula three) where the whole world was not much focused on, he kept making small wins that took him from Formula three to Formula two before he eventually made it to Formula One. Since getting into formula one in 2015, he kept challenging and getting small wins before becoming the world champion.

We can see clearly that his quest for excellence had always shown since he was in Formula three. So, you don’t have to get to the very top to do things excellently well. You can be excellent even at the lowest level by having small wins. Apply the principle in the next skill you intend to learn. Learn a bit today, and another tomorrow and so on. Before long, you will become a champion if you are consistent. As the ancient saying goes, “the journey of a thousand miles begins with a step”. 

Let me know what your thoughts are about the topic and ask questions if you have any via the comment section below.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Charles Adimah is an entrepreneur and the Project Manager of B2SL INITIATIVE, where he manages the vision. He is a great believer that a prosperous Nigeria is a product of successful Nigerians. You can reach him via email at charles@b2sl.org.

“When you stop growing, you start dying”. – Williams. S. Burroughs.

One of the characteristics of living things is growth. If you have ever planted anything like a flower, one of the things you want to watch out for is whether it is growing and looking fresh with healthy leaves. You get concerned if you do not see any sign of growth after a few weeks of planting. You then begin to fear that your plant may be dying, and you try to make the plant survive. As humans, we are happy when a child grows physically, socially, and intellectually. If a child is not growing physically, or cannot interact with others, or is not able to grasp certain things at some point, then there is cause for worry.

Your mindset is a set of beliefs that shape how you understand yourself and the world. Your mindset determines how you feel, think, and behave. For example, you may loathe trying anything new because you believe you will fail. A Stanford psychologist, Carol Dweck, has identified two types of mindset; fixed mindset and growth mindset. People with a fixed mindset believe that their abilities cannot change. For instance, if they are good at Maths, they do not require extra effort to pass.

On the other hand, people with a growth mindset believe that they can become better at anything with persistence and conscious effort. If you strive for excellence, having a growth mindset is crucial. But how do you develop one? Here are some ways.

DON’T DISPARAGE FAILURE

Many people believe that failure is terrible because society seems to suggest so. After all, nobody recognizes those who came last in the race or the class. All the praises and prices usually go to the best performers. However, failure is an integral part of success. Before a child learns how to walk, there are many falls. But the fall does not stop a child from getting up and trying again. If you wrote an exam and failed, don’t think it is the end of the world. Enroll for the exam again. Go back to the books if you are learning to code and you’ve not gotten the language. Don’t think it is the end of the world because you failed once. Instead, work on improving yourself for future performance.

FOCUS ON THE JOURNEY

Late American tennis star Arthur Ashe once said, “success is a journey, not a destination.” Too often, people focus on their big goals and forget the process. Big goals and dreams are reasonable, but they are also not easy to achieve. Rather than focus on the purpose of losing weight, for example, enjoy the new habits you learn, such as healthy eating, discipline, and the knowledge that you can do it. Thinking of Writing a book is a great idea. But rather than focusing on the published book, think about the new words and better writing skills you get in the process. These are small wins that point you towards excellence.

TAKE ON CHALLENGES

A person who has a growth mindset will always take on new challenges. Challenges are opportunities for growth so embrace them. The hardest part of any accomplishment is in starting. Take the first step to reading for ten minutes a day to improve your reading habit. Learn to listen and ask questions when you don’t understand. Face your fears, and you may be surprised that it is not as difficult as you thought.

I believe that you can mark yourself out for excellence if you decide. The question is, do you want to be an excellent person?

I will love to hear your comments and questions in the comments section below.  

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Besidone Ebule is the Project Director at B2SL, where he works to encourage personal development and build success networks. You can contact him at bessy.ebule@b2sl.org.

“Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort”. – Paul J. Meyer.

You may find yourself constantly battling pressure to work towards excellence in all you do by your parents, friends, or pressures from society. For some people, it means always coming first in class. For others, it may be striving to be the most outstanding in the group. Other people may constantly desire to be in the spotlight because of their achievements. What is more daunting is that there seems to be a global pressure for a competition which makes people instinctively compare their lives with others. The result is that we find ourselves always striving to do better in all circumstances. For you to strive for excellence, you must first understand it.

Excellence is the quality of being outstanding or extremely good, and in that sense, striving for it is not a bad idea. After all, who doesn’t want to be associated with outstanding results with all their attractions? Excellent results bring recognition, monetary reward most times, privileges, and a sense of importance. For example, if you have come tops in your class or recently led your group to victory, you will feel a sense of fulfillment. However, it would help knowing when striving for excellence is taken out of context and negative. Here are some tips on having the right mindset for excellence.

KNOW YOURSELF

Success is desirable and attracts attention, but you must realize that everyone who succeeded paid the price. When you hear that Lionel Messi is the best football player globally and has a net worth of $400 million, you may be tempted to envy him and want to be like him. Or, when you hear that Aliko Dangote is the richest man in Africa, you may aspire to take his position. However, for you to succeed, you must know where you are. Are you practicing the way Messi does? Do you have an eye for investments like Dangote does? It is a wild goose chase without answering that question, envying them, or wanting to be like them.

DON’T COMPARE YOURSELF WITH OTHERS

It is important not to compare yourself with others in your quest for excellence, but others can inspire you. For example, if you have done your best at anything, you shouldn’t bother about how other people have succeeded. Let’s say you wrote WAEC, NECO, or JAMB, and you have passed all your subjects with credits while your friend has passed all subjects with distinctions; you should have no cause to worry. Your friend may have had extra learning resources that you don’t have access to or may understand things quicker than you. You should not count yourself a failure based on other people’s successes.

WORK TO IMPROVE YOURSELF

Having a mindset of excellence will inspire you to work on improving yourself. If you fail a question or an exam, ask yourself sincerely, why did I not pass this subject? What can I do to turn my failure around? Do not give up on yourself and stop trying because people who give up never succeed in the end. If you must set out time to study until you understand how to answer the questions, do so! If you must get extra help from people who know more than you, do so by all means, and you can measure if you are growing or not.

When you have a mindset of excellence, there is a conscious effort to improve yourself better than you performed the last time. It is not striving to be someone else or competing with others so that you can outshine them.

Please let us know if you have any comments or questions or need further help in the comments section.

November 22, 2021 | Noble Uzoagba

Antoine Griezmann, the French footballer, once said, ‘With hard work and effort, you can achieve anything.’ I genuinely believe that virtually everything substantial is impossible to achieve if one doesn’t work hard. It is clear that hard work comes with pain and sacrifices, but one sure fact is that a hard worker is on the right path to achieve his dreams. 

So many great inventors, leaders, pacesetters began life at a place of disadvantage. Maybe they didn’t have good primary schooling or the necessary funds to achieve their dreams. But what did they do? Sit back and watch and blame life? No! they worked so hard, paid so many sacrifices, and got the reward in the end. They pulled of marvelous discoveries and inventions. Some others broke massive records, making them so famous that they became famous worldwide even after their death. That is what hard work can bring.

Here are some of the benefits of hard work:

Hard work brings success: John Carmack, a successful video gaming technologist, said, “focused hard work is the key to success.” John’s statement is as valid as it could be. The little effort, the little step in the right direction, is what sets one up for success. We’ve seen this in the career of some great sportsmen, how the amount of work they put in brought them to a great level above others.

Hard work brings self-fulfilment: Let’s say you have an exam, and you put in long night hours to read and prepare. After this, you write the exam, and when the results are released, you find out that you did amazingly. How would you feel? Happy with yourself, right? That’s the kind of self-fulfilment that comes with working hard.

Hard work brings recognition: It doesn’t matter how talented one is. If he doesn’t work hard, he won’t be recognized. Anywhere a genuine hard worker is, his results would always bring about recognition and recommendation.

In conclusion, hard work pays as Lou Holtz, a sportsman, sums it up by saying, “winners embrace hard work. They love the discipline of it, the trade-off they’re making to win. Losers, on the other hand, see it as punishment. And that’s the difference”. Try to work hard from now and enjoy the benefits.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Noble Uzoagba is a student. He is dedicated to success in his academics and future career. He is a member of B2SL Success Hub.