The Sunday Mail
It is easy to settle, never stretching beyond the pain barrier, and continuing on a well worn path of the familiar. Even if the path is leading to destruction, it is all to easy to get used to the way things have always been.
You can never change anything unless it hurts too much to stay in the same place. Change is not just a watch word, but action. Change will always disturb, frustrate and make you think and rethink.
To get out of any hole, you have to take responsibility and press the “stop” button. To get out of any hole requires you to stop digging and start doing things differently to cover the hole. You will never change much if you do not want the pain that goes with the pain. To want the pain of a perfect and fit body without the pain and discipline of exercise is a myth. To reverse out of any situation you face you have to stop, turn and change course. Change is a bitter and necessary pill that needs to be taken as prescribed. Health can never come the longer you postpone taking bitter medication.
Motivation by prayer
Some answers come through prayer, while others come in the form of a prayer itself. So it is with the prayer of Francis Drake that has been prayed by many, sang by multitudes and recited in many places. Until you feel a disturbance, there can be no growth and elevation. The road to greatness is not paved in gold. It is a rough road, with winding turns and potholes. Taking greatness is easy, taking the road to greatness requires discipline, courage and persistence. You are likely not going anywhere far so long as the journey is an enjoyable leisurely stroll without sweat and pain.
Sir Francis Drake (c.?1540 – 27 January 1596) became the first Englishman to circumnavigate the Earth. He was a bold and daring man of action and vision. He refused to park on easy street but was willing to take to the rough seas and continue to explore beyond homeland. Drake pushed the boundaries and limitations, becoming the first Arctic explorer. He went were his fellow men had never gone because he was willing to do what other people were too uncomfortable to attempt.
Queen Elizabeth awarded Drake knighthood on April 4, 1581 aboard his flagship, “Golden Hind”. He later served as a Member of Parliament. Words of people of action are worth noting. Perhaps what Francis Drake is most known for today is his prayer of 1577. It is a prayer that is still fresh and is commonly entitled “Disturb Us Lord”:
“Disturb us Lord,
When we are too pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.
Disturb us Lord,
When with the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst for the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision of the new Heaven to dim.
Disturb us Lord,
To dare more boldly,
To venture on wilder seas,
Where storms will show Your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.
We ask you to push back
The horizons of our hopes;
And to push back the future
In strength, courage, hope, and love.
This we ask in the name of our Captain,
Who is Jesus Christ.
Pattern interruption
The prayer of Francis Drake is worth praying daily and keeping within reach. Greatness does not come at bargain prices and it can be a painful stretch. Every winner knows as someone once said: “Gold medals aren’t really made of gold. They’re made of sweat, determination, and a hard-to-find alloy called guts.”
Until you interrupt a pattern, the pattern will continue. Unless you are willing to change you will always be eluded by growth and development. You do not have the luxury of looking at where you are at and calling this a permanent destination. Great people do not settle, they continue to hustle. There is more and you are able to do more and be more. Likely the capacity you are using is small, compared to what you can be and do. Changing your mindset is work and takes effort. You can stretch further and do more. Do not despair or quit too soon, sometimes things get worse before they get better. You can dream bigger and bolder, while taking massive and focused action.
There is more that you can do and become. Do not set your ceiling too low. Do not be tempted to stop the journey now. Keep moving and keep scaling higher. Do not fear moving slowly, be concerned when you stand still or resign from putting your best foot forward.
Dream Again, and Again
Do not let your dreams die whatever the circumstances. Face the brutal realities of your situation but do not stop dreaming and seeking to express the dreams. If you failed in the past, turn on your dream machine again. Do not wait for fair weather to start moving. You would have lost precious ground if you do. Dream bigger and bolder, taking massive and determined action. Set new dreams and blaze fresh paths.
Reach for new horizons and refuse to be held back by adversity. Multiply your dream level by 10. This is called the “10X” factor. If you do not, ten years from now you will be wishing that you had dared to multiply and magnify your dream by a factor of 100. Opportunities are most abundant when most people are gripped by fear and clouds of negativity. Do not let present circumstances tempt you to believe that all hope is lost and there is no need to dream again. Lift your vision beyond your eye-lids and clouds of despair. Dare to dream. Go beyond your shore line.
Beyond the familiar
Never mistake your fame in your village for global acclaim. Keep challenging your limits and be willing to lose sight of the land. Be willing to go beyond the familiar, the usual and the mundane. Defy familiar territories and stories, familiar paths and practices, and familiar levels and labels. There are new paths to blaze and new things to discover. Be excited about this moment and approach it with the lens of a discovery explorer and the ambition of a beginner. The cycle of mediocrity can never be broken so long as you do what you have always done, play at the level you have always played at and planned in the way you have always planned. Dare to break the limits and go beyond the usual. If where you are is feeling too crowded, it might be because you are flying too low and so close to the ground. Dare to go for the open skies and open seas. There is space for your idea, thought and product. The world of dreams is the space of infinite possibilities. Dare to re-frame.
Re-frame your thoughts
Re-frame the meaning of things and life. It is not what happens that matters the most but what you think about it and how you choose to respond. There is more to life than simple comforts and choosing to run away instead of engaging the situation. Think beyond your own skin and your own mouth. Unless your definition of prosperity goes beyond simple personal comforts, you have a poverty mentality. Dare to think big and boldly. Re-frame your thoughts and see life through bigger lens. The level of your thinking determines your threshold of frustration. Problems at any level will always require a thinking and action level that is higher. See beyond your nose. A life is not significant except for its impact on other lives. Unless you dream beyond your door step, your dreams are too small. See differently in order to do differently. Thinking big is sometimes painful. Taking responsibility is painful but necessary.
Outlive your pain
Until you break the pain barrier, you will never have a breakthrough. The pain barrier hides opportunities and possibilities beyond your wildest dreams. All change and transitions always produce pain. It is when you cannot go through pain that the cause of change is forever lost. Embrace the pain of change and burn it as fuel for the journey of transitioning to a new level. You will grow only to the threshold of your pain. Julius Caesar once said: “It is easier to find men who will volunteer to die, than to find those who are willing to endure pain with patience.”
Storms reveal mastery
There are many that want testimonies without going through tests. It does not work. Storms show mastery and reveal competence. It is when the waters are most turbulent that the best of leaders emerge. Old solutions are never sufficient for new situations. Pretending does not solve anything. The earlier you face brutal realities, the earlier you steer towards the shore. Mastering business is not about having a qualification in business but having the courage to steer through turbulence, master necessary thought and execute strategies that take you forward.
Committed to your greatness.
Milton Kamwendo is a leading international transformational and motivational speaker, author, and executive coach. His life purpose is to inspire and promote greatness. He can be reached at: [email protected] and Twitter: @MiltonKamwendo or WhatsApp at: 0772422634. His website is: www.miltonkamwendo.com
