The Sunday Mail
Hunt for Greatness
Milton Kamwendo
The new year, 2023, is here. This is an extraordinary year, one filled with much anticipation and possibilities.
You determine at the beginning of the year what you wish it to be. You then spend the rest of the year working towards making that magnificent vision a reality. Get engaged, anticipate great things and be ready to dance.
This new year is the beginning of many beginnings. It is a hinge moment. Picture a door.
It swings on hinges; closing and opening. Such is the nature of seasons, times and events.
They are hinge moments. Work on ensuring that you are grounded, focused and resilient. Let whatever comes find you ready, robust and agile.
I trust you enjoyed your Christmas celebrations. Christmas has varying meanings to different people. For some, it is a time of unbridled debauchery and bingeing. For others, it is a time to be with family and friends; a time to reunite and reflect. For yet others, it is a time to give and, hopefully, receive gifts.
There are people who consider it a time of prayer and penitence.
Whatever the season means, make it worth your while. Create memories that are lasting, ones you will cherish.
A year is made up of four seasons. When these seasons come full circle, we are ready to start another new year. Life is a collection of seasons.
What we make out of the seasons does not depend on the seasons, but what we do. Seasons do not change much in our lives unless we are willing to change.
Reflect on the past
The past is an asset that cannot be wasted. Never waste any crisis that you face. Refuse to live with hurt, but put your heart into all you do. The past is not meant to be a campsite but a great springboard.
As you reflect on the past, it is important to think broadly and deeply about a number of things. Some of the questions to consider are: What were my goals? How did things turn out? What did I accomplish? How will I build on these victories? What did I learn? What did I have to unlearn? How did I grow? What am I proud of? Where do I go next? What are the next steps?
It helps to tackle a few of these questions with a journal or reflect with someone close. The unexamined life is not worth much. Some people do not like thinking and digging deep.
They prefer being in a dreamy or drunken state, where they do not have to face reality. The first step to greatness is to face reality. Change never happens as long as we are on the run from reality. The past arrests and imprisons those who are not willing to face its realities.
Reflect on the future
The future is too precious for it to be left to chance. The key to greatness is being intentional.
If you do not deliberately anticipate the future, shape your dreams and craft your plans, you set yourself up for accidents.
The future is too precious to leave it to chance. Wishing is not a greatness move. Hope alone is not a durable strategy for winning.
The magic lies in what I call “goal setting”. This involves setting and pursuing inspiring goals that stretch us to new levels of achievement. Between goal setting and goal attainment is a lot of work, sweat and course correction.
Dreams do happen. The most powerful dreams are not the ones that happen in the night or whenever you get to sleep. They are the ones that you see with your eyes open. They are the ones that you shape, draw, craft and blueprint.
Value those moments where a possibility strikes your mind so vividly that you write it down or document it somehow. Anything that you can see vividly in your mind is achievable. Do not let people who do not witness what you see discourage you.
The realities of coasting through a year may deflect you or at least threaten to do so. Do not despair. Situations, people, circumstances or experiences will tempt you to bury this power to dream.
Many naysayers will tempt you to scale down your dreams and lower your ambition in order to fit into their scripts. Do not let those who have given up, stopped dreaming and become cynical infect you with their negativity.
Every new year is a season of hope. It is an extraordinary opportunity to sustain your good plans, change course where needed or do something radically big.
Stop playing too close to the ground and thinking only of safety. Take giant leaps of faith.
Be bold and courageous. Faith will inspire you to paint bold, inspiring pictures of the future.
In the land of those who dream, there is an opportunity everywhere. Without these pictures, life is reduced to a mundane maze of habit and struggle. Life is too precious to be wasted in banal living and hopelessness.
Welcome the new season as your hinge moment, where you pivot to greatness. Do not be stuck in the past. Do not be mired in unbelief. Do not, for a moment, wallow in negativity. It is an extraordinary year for you to do great things.
My blessing and prayer
I pray that 2023 may be a great year for you. Let it be a year in which you go forward and excel in every way. Let this be a year in which you are elevated to new levels beyond your wildest dreams.
Let this be your year to rise and shine. Let this be a year in which you take massive, determined and focused action.
Let this be a year where you will forget you once struggled for little and felt the world was confined to a tight space.
May 2023 usher you into a life that is better, higher, richer and greater than anything you have ever experienced.
Milton Kamwendo is an international transformational and motivational speaker, author and a virtual, hybrid and in-person workshop facilitator. He is a cutting-edge strategy, team-building and organisation development facilitator and consultant. His life purpose is to inspire and promote greatness. He can be reached at: [email protected] and his website is: www.miltonkamwendo.com
