I am one of those people that can walk into a boutique to buy new clothes, and come out with the clothes I wore there in the bag.
Yeah I know right, but please don’t judge me. Some of you do weirder things. 😊
I remember when I bought my first phone, a Tecno H6 android device. I felt very good about it because it was the first phone I’d buy with my own money.
I didn’t even wait to get home, from the dealer’s store I had unpacked it, removed my SIM from my old phone and inserted it into it. I put the battery in its slot and switched it on.
As soon as it come on, I immediately started changing the default settings, I set the time and date, took a selfie and changed the wallpaper, changed the ring tones, switched off the keypad tone and configured the internet settings.
The same thing happened when I got my first laptop. As soon as I got home, I sat down with it and didn’t get up until I had tweaked it’s settings and configurations to my satisfaction.
I know some of you can relate with this, and others can’t, but that is not the point of this post.
You see, like our phones and gadgets; the average human is born wired to succeed but factory set to fail. We all have all it takes to succeed but not all succeed, why?
Do you ever wonder why even though all men are born great, not all die great?
It’s like, even though we were made to succeed we were also set to self-destruct.
Brian Tracy in his book, No Excuse: the power of self discipline tries to explain this phenomenon.
He describes it as success versus failure mechanism. He says, “Your brain has both a success mechanism and a failure mechanism. The failure mechanism is the temptation to follow the undisciplined path of least resistance, to do what is fun and easy rather than what is hard and necessary. Your failure mechanism operates automatically throughout your life, which is the major reason why most people fail to fulfill their individual potentials.”
So you see that in order to enjoy a life of success, you must change your settings.
For some of us, we were blessed with parents and authority figures who started early in life to configure our settings for success by installing into us power apps known as values and disciplines. These have helped to give us the advantage over the majority.
Some of us weren’t that lucky, so we’ve grown to become accustomed to a life of at best average. Our failure mechanism runs on autopilot causing us to intuitively slide into the slippery path of least resistance. We have come up with every elaborate and legitimate excuse for not succeeding. The only issue with that is that at the end of the day, it is still an EXCUSE.
So how do you change your settings?
– Question what you have believed about yourself and life.
– Unlearn unproductive habits.
– Get used to the idea of being uncomfortable.
– Practice daily disciplines.
– Become a Value Inspired Personality.
Oh dear, the list is inexhaustible really, but these should suffice.
And hey, don’t be too hard on yourself. Even the great Apostle Paul at a time had the same concerns, he lamented thus, “What I don’t understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can’t be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God’s command is necessary.”
I’ll stop here for now.
I’d love to know in the comment section if this was helpful to you.