The Sunday Mail
Unless you are Trevor Noah, Carl Joshua, Q Dube or Nceku, who get paid for turning serious issues into comedy fare, stop joking with life and be ruthlessly serious with your goals. The key to greatness is not mindless comedy and treating the serious issues of your life and circumstances as mere jokes. You do not have the luxury of poking fun at everything and everyone, while your goals are begging for execution.
You have to have a measure of focused ruthlessness to become great and do significant things. The pain of poverty is too much to be joked about and treated lightly. The development gaps we have is too big to be a joking matter. Living a life of quiet desperation is not a comic item. The burden of mediocrity is too heavy to be joked about.
To move an inch from where you are to where you need to be you have to commit to taking radical and ruthless personal action. Do not get me wrong. Practice empathy and be kind with other people, but demand the best from yourself without compromise. Stop giving yourself an unnecessary margin of excuses. A passive and lethargic approach to your own life leave you in a gutter. You have commitment to ruthlessly pursuing your goals with determination and a never-say-die spirit. Pursue your dreams with such passion that your goals will beg for mercy. Quit procrastinating and giving yourself countless flimsy options, and endless excuses. Instead of giving explanations commit to positive and focused action towards your greatness. Instead of ranting about how things are impossible, do the best possible with what you have. Instead of stating wishes, set definite goals and a programme of action. When you crystallise your goals and reduce your options, you increase your motivation and personal power. You do not get what you wish, you get what you go ruthlessly go for.
Unless you want to limit yourself, never extrapolate your problems into a global trend or treat your limitations is a special wonder. Everything you face, has likely been faced and overcome. No problem is insurmountable and very few things are impossible. Stop glorifying your mountains as impossible and climb them with determination. Innovation is inspired by problems and difficulties. Any crisis you face is a signal that a new approach is now required. Do not just cower in the face of challenges, be inspired to think. Situations are nothing. Circumstances are nothing. Challenges are nothing. It is the grit within that counts the most. Your ruthless determination to win, to fight and to get back on your feet when you are hardest hit. Being down does not mean you are out. Stand with ruthless determination in the face of your adversities. Know when to be humble and when to be stubborn. It is when situations are forcing you down that you must stand with a stubborn and unrelenting determination to move forward. Stop feeling pity for yourself and hoping that the whole world will come and commiserate with you. Life is too short for you to spend it thinking like a victim, complaining like a victim, crusading other victims and ultimately being a victim.
Ruthless with Positivity
There are many prophets of doom, evangelists of disaster and apostles of depravity. Do not join them. Highlighting what is not working is not a special scientific discovery. Complaining about everything is winning a marathon or a scientific feat. The challenge is being ruthlessly positive. Keep your confidence and positive focus in the midst of the heavy clouds of negativity and despair. Being ruthlessly positive gives you an unfair advantage. You do not build confidence with anyone by turning negativity into a career. While others laugh and jeer, you are focused and working. While others are waiting for something to go wrong you are busy making things work. While others are prophesying doom, you are too busy, too engaged, too focused to attend to the supposedly falling sky.
Ruthless with Time
Today is the youngest that you will ever be. Wasting your time is wasting your life. Be ruthless about your time. Define what you will do, and do it. Be clear about what you will not do and protect your time ruthlessly. You cannot do everything, so do not try to do everything. Ruthlessly protect your focus. If you do not, you will always be complaining that you are overloaded and you have no time for what matters most.
And you already know, there are many people that would like to give you their monkeys for you to carry. If you are not ruthless about your time you will find yourself carrying a troop of every dancing monkey, overwhelmed but not productive. Get ruthless about your time. Do not feel guilty about declining to apply your time to things that have no bearing to your goals and purpose. When you abuse your time you are abusing your life.
Ruthless with Knowledge
Most problems in life and business are symptoms of ignorance where it matters most. Be kind to people but ruthless with your own ignorance. Attack areas of ignorance in your domain and key result areas. Learn something new and useful every day. Do not be satisfied with what you have on your certificates, keep learning and growing. Never excuse arrogant ignorance and treat it like a respected in-law. Ruthlessly attack ignorance with voracious learning. Learn daily, read widely and think deeply. Buy and read books voraciously. Ask good questions and learn from those who know better and are doing greater things. Get a coach or mentor to help you and be willing to pay them. Whatever you do put ignorance under extreme pressure. Learn like you do not have time, because you do not have time for sure. Take a positive view to knowledge and expertise.
You cannot blame your parents for your ignorance. If you want to learn you can learn; it is your choice. You cannot blame your school or lecturers for ignorance, if you want to learn you can; the opportunities are endless. You cannot blame lack of time as the reason for ignorance. If you are ruthless with your time you will learn, fast and fuel your growth. You cannot blame others for where you are, because if you are ruthless with yourself you will not remain where you are now for long.
Ruthless with Failure
So long as you are trying you have not failed; at least yet. You fail when you cease to be ruthless with your failure. Get back again and give one more punch, then another and another. Ruthlessly attack your failure and erase your failure record. When you fail, ruthless erase the memory of having failed and get back on the ring. Stop wearing failure like a badge. Fail, then get up and attack with focus and determination. The whole world has not stopped moving forward and it is not lining up at your door with a mission to laugh at you. People are too busy with their own problems to be obsessed about you. Be ruthlessly focused on moving beyond your last failure. Ruthlessly learn, and attack areas of ignorance. Level 2 problems cannot be solved by Level 1 knowledge and mindsets. When you fail, ruthlessly learn something new and get back on your feet and get to work.
Ruthless with Ideas
Ideas that are not ruthlessly acted upon evaporate fast. Ruthlessly take action and combat your ideas with action. While others hesitate, take action. While others are creating fame doing nothing worthwhile, execute your ideas and turn thoughts into things. While others hesitate, take action.
Be known as a person of action and take massive action. While others are waiting for perfect circumstance take ruthless action in the circumstances that you find yourself in. If the circumstances you are in are not ideal, deal with the circumstance you have and go for greatness.
Committed to your greatness.
Milton Kamwendo
© 2018, Milton Kamwendo
