Wake yourself up

Hunt for Greatness
Milton Kamwendo

Who are you blaming for where you are?

Wake up and stop feeling sorry for yourself. Do not even dare to recruit others to help you feel sorry for yourself. Sing any song you like, except the self-pity one. Life is not for the sleepy and those who wait for a Big Bang of Luck! It is not for those who dream their way through life, just waiting for something they have not imagined. The purpose of life is a life of purpose.

You do not have the luxury to shift blame and think like a victim. There is abundant opportunity waiting for you. The way you think is important and affects what you see and how you see. It is a rough, but necessary thing to say, but if your life is to become anything, it is up to you. You are the most valuable player in the scene of your life.

Until you take personal responsibility, everything will wait for you to get to that point before your train of greatness moves on. Until you wake up, there can be no movement. Wake yourself up and put some enthusiasm into your life and work. There is a lot to be excited and thrilled about. It all starts inside you and not outside you. It is not the conditions around you that matter the most, but the conditions inside you.

Greatness has been waiting for you to show up. It is waiting for you to rise up, dress up and show up ready to play to win. It is up to you to get your life in active motion.

You may have to stretch yourself a little, but that is where it all starts. You might have to start slowly, but that is what starting is all about. You do not gain momentum standing still. If you stand still it is easy to think that everything has stopped functioning. When you move, you start meeting other movers and shakers. Make your move, it puts a train of things into motion.

Set big goals

Be clear about where you are going even if you may not know how you will get there. Without a clear programme of goals, it is easy to drift along and hope to arrive at some port somewhere by accident. Life is planned and planned things manifest faster.

Games are planned so that you do not play to play, but play to win. With your imagination you replay the future. With your plans you hold the blueprint of your life in your hands. When your mind is directed on some clear goal, it triggers power. There is so much power within you waiting to manifest.

If you want your life to be an accident, plan accidentally and have accidental goals and you will surely harvest an accident. Do not wait for luck to show up and do not depend on fair weather in order to act. Waiting for perfect circumstances in order to act is squandering time.

Perfect circumstances in an imperfect world is perfect nonsense. Take whatever you are going through as the new normal and deal with it. Bloom where you are planted. Dance to the music that is playing. Plan in the draw you have been put in. Be present, be engaged and aim to play to win where you are. Stop wishful thinking and recreational complaining.

Set goals that are bigger than where you stand currently. You may not be where you began, but you have not arrived. Celebrate your progress, but do not park too long at your last station of success.

Greatness is never a terminal destination, but it is always work-in-progress. Do not wait for perfect circumstances in order to dream big and wake up and follow through with determined action. Dream in colour in your darkest moments. Break through any limitations in your mind. Refuse to let anyone put a barrier to your thinking and imagination. Do not let the conditions of your life dictate your pace and thoughts in life. Take charge of your thinking, for as you think so you are. Do not rent out your precious mental real estate to doubt, fear, or worry. Apply your mind to the deep work of creating solutions and models of greatness.

Set yourself on fire

Pack all the enthusiasm you can into your life and daily action. Be fully awake and fully engaged. You do not have to look dead if you are alive! Some dead people look like there are just sleeping. You are not among the walking dead. You do not have the luxury of behaving like and looking like a dead person. There will be plenty of time in death to do that.

Be alive and take enthusiastic action. Show life, be lively and demonstrate agility. Whatever is happening around you, please do not advertise despondency, dismay and defeat. No one wants to work with a hopeless loser without any direction or passion to make a difference and add value.

Your enthusiasm will positively affect you and get you on the move. Your enthusiasm will affect others and supercharge them. Better still, your enthusiasm will affect everyone you come across. You become a powerful force of positive influence. Your energy feeds other people’s energy. Energy is attractive and people love to see energy in motion. Choose to be fully alive and fully awake.

Set victory as your goal

Victory is achieved through action. So take action, move some mountains and make something happen. Nothing happens by chance while you are asleep. Nothing is gained through purposeless waiting. Get moving and take massive action.

I came across a poem written by Herbert Kauffman, it inspired me. The poem is entitled “Victory!” Read it once, then again and then three more times and also share it with someone.

Here is the poem:

“You are the Man who used to boast

That you’d achieve the uttermost,

Some day.

You merely wished to show,

To demonstrate how much you know

And prove the distance you can go.

Another year we’ve just passed through.

What new ideas came to you?

How many big things did you do?

Time left twelve fresh months in your care

How many of them did you share

With opportunity and dare

Again where you so often missed?       

We do not find you on the list of makers good.

Explain the fact!

Ah No, ‘Twas not the chance you lacked!

As usual — you failed to act.”

Do not just let time pass as you watch. Do not just let time pass while you watch and wonder what is happening. Wake up, take action and get moving. Take action that shows that you are alive, awake and ready to meet life with purpose and passion. You cannot keep threatening to wake up while you snooze and hope that something will work out, that greatness will just appear from somewhere.

The enemy of all progress is fear. What holds most people back is fear. Fear will torment you if you give it permission. Fear of failure, fear that people will laugh at you, fear that it will never happen, fear of disappointment, whatever the fear, face it and plough through it.

Do not let fear maim you and kill your dreams and visions. Wake up everyday to attack and face your biggest fear head on. Do what you are afraid to do and you will be among the great ones.

Committed to your greatness.

Milton Kamwendo is a leading international transformational and motivational speaker, author, and growth mentor. 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