Akolawole Shoremi
“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” ― Socrates
Dear Readers,
Let me officially welcome you all to a new year. It’s 2018. And just like other past years, we are sooner done with it in numbering. Except that the everyday events of this year, even when we sooner begin a fresh one, will be a yardstick to measure what a success or failure we are to become. Yes! That yardstick is to be the outcome of what I termed the business of resolution.
I pay tribute to you for doing business with the Stockswatch family via our educative columns all through last year and most particularly, for reading through my many businesslike recommendations on entrepreneurship. The recommendations are practical experiences of both the failed and successful attempts of mine, my mentors, and of my mentors’ mentors. Hopefully, we all will get better in this new lap called 2018.
I bring to you good news and a bad one. The good news resonates hope of a brighter future while the bad news reminds us of who and where exactly we are that we do not begin think a brighter future is somewhere without admitting its present reality and living up to expectations. This news birthed the business of resolution. And our attitudinal approaches end up becoming the yardstick to understand why we will end up either succeeding or failing in as the New Year unfolds.
The bad news you may not be pleased with, from the realistic view, is that there is absolutely nothing special about a new year. The transition from 2017 to 2018 is merely a completion of a calendar cycle. The euphoria of a new year is rather more a celebration of the purpose behind the invention of time. But for time, there would not really have been not day, week, month, or year. Furthermore, the bad news is that the mark of a new year does not signify the record of any success except of the religious hype of being alive. Yet, people die on the first day of January and thereafter just as they would have died on other days of any other month. At the end, the all-righteousness gets many nowhere; spirituality, after all, is not a ticket to success. What then exactly is the hullabaloo of a new year?
I bring to you good news too.
The good news is the consciousness for the need of an appraisal. If for no other reason, the invention of time brings alive the need for appraisal. In the memoirs of a veteran journalist, Aremo Taiwo Allimi, he stated that “Without time… change has no meaning.” Time hence becomes a tool of comparison with which humans evaluate their achievements. The good news is that, psychologically, we are given a fresh lap to start. What better thing can we make out of this good news? Resolution!
The business of resolution is nothing other than the desire for change. A change that becomes meaningful with time. A change that brings into realities, yearnings of today and because it is easier to formulate resolutions and tougher to bring them alive – this principally makes making the right resolution a task on its own. Since it has become a custom that almost everyone makes a resolution or the other at the beginning of each year, it therefore becomes a necessity that we are guided aright.
A resolution wrongly made, without the proper analysis and acceptance of past experiences, will only be another wishful thoughts with no driving base. Aside that a resolution must meet reality; it also must be properly formulated with more of the resources needed within reach and not out of reach. I challenge you to dream big but not as big as the fallacy of becoming the richest man in the world before 2018 runs out; to encourage such resolution is as much as killing it on its birth. Even if you burgle the banks all round the year, you wouldn’t get closer to becoming one of the few richest in Nigeria. How then do we make the right resolution?
Formulating the right resolutions is a serious task. It is not one of those activities you carry out alongside pleasure or while basking in the euphoria of a new year. A right resolution must entail two ingredients; the spice of realism and that of optimism. A balanced resolution therefore projects on the current availability of your personal net-worth with an unrelenting vigour to continue to tap from the resources of others to enable you maximize your endeavours in bringing to reality the wishes of living more meaningful over time.
Below are few recommendations to winning the business of resolution:
- Accept reality; study the past and analyze the present to develop a formidable drive into the future.
- Do not make resolutions too big and scary. It is good to dream big. Winning big, however, requires time and sequential victories even if you are making a resolution to winning the lottery. Learn to set stages to conquer to avoid a sudden breakdown and unsatisfactory assessment within a short period.
- Do not rely on your net-worth only. And do not basically make your resolutions on the network of others. The essence of networking and mentoring is solely to maximize your own strength on the wealth of experiences of others.
In the words of Cavett Robert, “Character is the ability to carry out a good resolution long after the excitement of the moment has passed.” I hope you find the gut to execute yours!
We Can. We Will. We Must
Akolawole is a Social Media and Customer Service Executive, a Columnist with Stockswatch newspaper, a Techie, Media geek, and an active Advocate on Entrepreneurship and Nation building. He can be reached via akolshoremi@gmail.com and/or +2348085366022 (SMS only).